LVDR
by Ash of the Wardens
Summary: Two years ago, Ruby Rose's efforts of stopping a criminal mastermind from stopping a dust shop has gone unnoticed. Ruby Rose continued to attend Signal Academy alongside with her friends. Two Years later, Ruby Rose now attends Beacon Academy in order to become one of the best huntresses Remnant has to offer. RWBY AU.
1. Initiation

Edit (06/18/16): Not much change other than minor errors.

* * *

Beacon Academy.

Only a summer has passed since Ruby Rose had graduated from Signal Academy. From there, she would be able to see her sister, Yang Xiao Long, every day of the week or at least she hoped she would see her every day of the week until she graduated Beacon Academy and become a huntress and leave her to the large and huge and enormously large Academy. Just thinking about it, Ruby was already slightly depressed from the mere thought of entering the hunter-slash-huntress school. But she would get to spend time with her sister nonetheless and become a huntress that Ruby had longed for in years.

Today was the last day of summer and the day that Ruby Rose was going to Beacon Academy. She packed all the necessities that she would need that included her clothing, toiletries, her scroll that was neatly tucked into a definitely-washed-and-clean sock-that she-hadn't-worn-since-she-was-a-little-child-growing-up-in-Patch, her black pillow with a red rose sewn over it, ten boxes of ammunition for her weapon, and enough Lien for buying ammo for her weapon in the event she runs out of ammo cases and it would last Ruby for at least two semesters at Beacon. Ruby's signature cape and weapon was always on her so they didn't go inside the luggage that Ruby was going to carry all the way to Beacon.

Ruby's dad was waiting for her outside with a local friend on the car while she dragged her bag all the way to him and she gave it to him as soon as she reached the car which he put in the trunk of the car. Ruby's dad drove them all the way to the airlift that was headed to Vale and from there, both of them would go their separate ways, Ruby to Beacon via airship, her dad would drop off at a stop and get a ride to Signal Academy where he taught students to create their own weapons and hone their fighting skills in preparation for the hunter-slash-huntress academies all over Remnant. Once they reached the airport, Ruby's dad had his friend drive their car all the way back to their house and paid him in advance for the help. Being very close friends that they were, he rejected the offer and said that they could use it more than he would be able to so they should just keep it instead. Having nothing to say since his friend was more than well off, Ruby's dad just smiled and thanked his friend before leaving him in the island of Patch.

During the ride, Ruby talked a lot with his dad since she wouldn't be able to see him a lot except for video calls via Cross Continental Transmit System or the CCTS as some would call it and he would suddenly drop by at Beacon because he had a "day off" and visit Ruby and Yang. A few hours passed by, having the most fun that Ruby could get from his dad before the airship stopped by near Vale and Ruby's dad said his farewells to Ruby and wished her good luck with her first semester at Beacon. Before he left, he gave her daughter a goodbye and see-you-later kiss on her forehead before stepping out of the airship. Once out, Ruby stood up by the window and waved at her dad as the airship elevated and took off.

Having no one else to talk to now that his dad was gone, she took her bag and opened it to take out the sock that her scroll was in and closed the bag and put the bag at the side of her seat. She then unwrapped the sock and retrieved her scroll that was inside the sock and opened up her scroll only to find out that her sister had called her at least ten times and Ruby wasn't able to answer any of the calls because it was stored away properly not unlike some sister she knew who somehow "lost" her scroll at the day she was supposed to leave for Beacon. Having nothing to do, Ruby called Yang and she immediately picked up.

"Oh hey, Ruby!" Yang exclaimed through the scroll making Ruby create a distance between her ears and her scroll. "Fancy talking to you after thirteen missed calls."

"Hi, Yang," she replied briefly and sighed, "Dad just got off the airship a couple minutes ago and I have nothing to do so can we talk until I get there? I missed you so much because someone didn't go home at all during the summer…"

"Sure," she said enthusiastically, "Anything for my baby sis. Anyway, remember the Blake person I've been talking about for the past two years? Well, I've been doing something to get their attention and guess what?"

"What?" Ruby asked rather bluntly.

"Aww, come on Ruby. I won't tell you until you guess." Yang's voice was somewhat giddy from anticipation from Ruby's answer.

"Um… Is he your boyfriend or something?" Ruby was confused as how to answer her sister's question.

"You'll find out soon, Rubes," Yang said laughing a bit.

"Ugh! Then why was I guessing in the first place?" Ruby retorted childishly, "I'm going to hang up now, Yang." Ruby pulled her phone away from her ear and when she was about to end the call, Yang shouted through the scroll, "Ruby, wait! We haven't talked in two months!"

"It's not my fault that you were gone for two months, Yang. I was so lonely with just dad and Zwei at home. Dad was also sad that you didn't visit us and it was just dad and I. But we had so much fun even without you." At this point, Ruby was just making Yang jealous that she didn't come home to Patch for the summer, "We visited mom and we went to a birthday party with dad's friend's son. He was still four years old but he was _SO_ cute and adorable! Dad even played your favorite and my favorite video games with me!"

"Well, baby sis, now that you're going to attend Beacon with me, we're going to have more fun than you did with dad. Anyway, I'll be there at the airport in a while so I might be late and call me when you get here," Yang stated excitedly, "Oh and once you get here, I'll introduce you the Blake I've been talking about and-" Yang paused momentarily, "Speaking of Blake, she just somehow dropped by and I got to go! See you later, Rubes! Love you! Bye!" Yang ended the call abruptly and Ruby was left hanging on the call. Ruby, feeling a little down with finally nothing to do for the rest of the trip to Beacon, started playing games of her scroll to pass the time.

A little less than an hour had passed when the airship arrived at the runway near the academy, Ruby stood up from her seat and grabbed the handle of her rather large luggage and dragged it towards the exit. She had packed eleven pairs of the same clothing and too much ammunition for her to even carry around. So she struggled lifting his bag even with two hands. As she neared the exit, the weight of her bag had magically reduced and Ruby looked behind her and saw a green-haired, teenage boy about the same age as Ruby.

"Hey, Ruby," he stated while helping Ruby carry her luggage, "Haven't seen you since we graduated from Signal. Violette and Luke were calling you through scrolls but they couldn't reach you for some reason and you didn't tell any of us where you would be so we all just assumed you were going to another academy."

"Oh," Ruby tried to laugh it off, "I was home with my dad. Zwei broke my scroll as soon as I got home so I sent it for repairs. Apparently, Zwei drooling all over my scroll and chewing everything up made it stay at the repair guy for the entirety of the month. Luckily, all the data on scroll was salvaged," Ruby chuckled, "I'm sorry for not telling you guys. I wanted to send you guys some letters but all the addresses I had was on my phone. My dad picked me up right after we graduated and we went straight home at Patch to celebrate. We didn't get to see Yang all throughout summer though." Ruby looked a little bit forlorn at the mention of her sister's name but cheered up immediately that she was going to see Yang in a couple of minutes. "So Greene, what'd you guys do over the summer?"

"Eh… um," Greene shrugged his shoulders, still helping Ruby with her heavy luggage while carrying his own on his back, "Nothing much. The twins went to Atlas and the other guys didn't really show up much except when they thought you were coming to Vale for some reason. I told them that you wouldn't show up and they all were like, 'Greene, you're just hopeless'." A smirk grew on Greene's face as he recollected the events that had happened that day. "And they all came home disappointed. I think everyone from Beacon just missed you Ruby. I mean, you just swent missing after we got out of Signal."

"I get the point, Greene," Ruby now pouting, "Now, could you just help me get this heavy thing inside. It's freezing and Yang's waiting for me."

"Alright, alright. Just stop making that face."

Ruby formed a smile on her face and looked straight up towards the airport. It took Ruby and Greene a few minutes to enter the building and from there, Greene placed Ruby's bag on the floor gently and bid Ruby farewell saying that his uncle was going to pick him up somewhere in Downtown Vale. Ruby waved him goodbye and looked at her heavy bag as soon as Greene was nowhere in sight. As soon as Greene had left, she noticed a green and red wallet that was on the floor where Greene had stood on not too long ago. She placed her bag on the ground momentarily and picked up the wallet. Ruby opened the wallet to look for identification and saw that it was her friend's so she decided to keep the wallet somewhere on one of her pockets and just give it to him when he sees her at the academy. She then dragged her bag once more on her own and continued towards the drop zone area where she would meet Yang. Ruby walked for a good ten minutes before she even saw a glimpse of her sister's golden hair. Yang, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention to the people passing through the drop zone area instead, she was talking to a black-haired girl wearing a black bow on top of her head and a black best with a white undershirt. Wanting to surprise her sister, Ruby, stopped dragging her bag across the floor and snuck up to her sister and the black-haired girl noticed what she was doing but chose to ignore her.

"YANG!" she shouted, jumping up on her sister's back and giving her a big hug.

"Ruby!" choked from the Ruby's sudden hug from her bag, "How's my baby sis doing?" Ruby didn't respond verbally but tightened her hug. "I missed you too, Rubes. I had a reason why I couldn't go back home with dad. I'll tell you all about it after your initiation at Beacon. Trust me. It's going to be fun."

Ruby released her hold on Yang and asked her to help her carry her bag for her. Yang agreed and came with Ruby towards her bag which looked small until Yang lifted the bag up and was shocked at the difference of weight and looks. "Looks like someone over packed their stuff." Ruby smiled slightly embarrassed at the stuff she had. _Greene hadn't complained. Maybe he was just being nice_ , Ruby pouted, making an annoyed face to Yang who just laughed it off.

"Yang, you told me earlier that you were going to introduce me to this Blake guy. So where is he?" Ruby asked innocently. The black-haired girl hear this and glared at Yang and she realized that that her name was a unisex name so she did not tell Ruby that she was actually a girl.

"So… uh… Ruby meet Blake," she pointed at the black-haired girl. Then she faced Blake, "Blake meet Ruby." She scratched the back of her head and smiled in embarrassment at the fact that she forgot to mention that Blake was actually a girl. Blake just scoffed and turned to Ruby.

"Hi, my name's Blake Belladonna," Blake said and Ruby acknowledged her by sticking her hand out for a shake and Blake returned the gesture, "I'm your sister's um…," Blake directed her eyes behind Ruby as if looking for the right word, "teammate."

"I- uh… I'm Ruby Rose, I'm Yang's sister," Blake then helped Ruby with carrying her luggage since it was so heavy for Ruby alone but with the three of them, the bag seemed like it weighed almost nothing. The trio exited the airport and called for a cab right outside the drop zone area. Yang then put Ruby's luggage at the trunk of the car and sat at the passenger seat. "To Beacon Academy." The driver nodded and started driving towards Beacon.

When the cab reached Beacon, the large castle-like academy, the trio headed to the first year locker room while carrying Ruby's large bag, barely making it in time when the announcement called the first years in for the initiation at the Beacon Cliff. Ruby store her bag on a random locker that she chose which had the number 374 and sat on a nearby bench while her legs were stretched outwards and Yang smiled at her sister without saying a word. Travelling from Patch to Vale was pretty tiring considering that Ruby was now going to be an official student of Beacon in a couple of minutes.

"Alright, sis," Yang said, giving her sister a big hug, "we can't be here so have fun. I'll be at your team selecting ceremony at the amphitheater after the initiation and most importantly have fun, Rubes and take care of yourself. Don't go overexerting yourself out there." Yang gave Ruby another big hug before Blake told her that they needed to leave as a staff went up to the stage and addressed all the first years. "Oh and uh," Yang said at the door before leaving, "You should come with me after the ceremony at my team's dorm room. Blake and I made some of your favorite cookies earlier this morning so they'll still be kind of fresh when we get to my dorm room."

"Thank you so much, Yang!" Ruby's eyes widened when she hear that she would be having cookies, her favorite treat-slash-food-meal of every single day since she was born, "I'll see you later Yang." The red-haired girl then gave her sister another big hug before leaving the locker rooms, opposite from where was Yang was exiting.

Ruby arrived at the cliffs where first year students were gathered. She then made her way through the crowd in order to look for a Greene who was supposed to be here at the initiation as well. Ruby stretched her feet in order to get a better view of people over the top of their heads. She was looking for a spiky green-haired head which was apparently hard because there were a bunch of people that had the same kind of green hair. Ruby groaned as her master plan was foiled in a mere thirty seconds. So Ruby resorted to looking for him on two feet flat on the ground. Ruby continued walking through the crowd searching for her green-haired friend.

While walking through the crowd, she saw an opening between two fellow students and she took that route to get out of the cramped space so that she could have a better view of the people. Once she got out of the crowded space, she was suddenly met by a red-haired, golden-plated armor wearing guy. "Hey, Ruby! Nice to you see you here!"

"Irvine, do you know where Greene is?" Ruby looked somewhat tired and got a nod from Irvine, "Come on, follow me. Greene's with the rest of the guys. I just got here a couple minutes ago too but they found me." Irvine took her by the wrist and guided her back through the crowd and maneuvered their way until they saw a group of five teenagers conversing with one another and making and laughing at dirty jokes. _Guys… typical…_ , Ruby thought to herself.

"Hey guys!" Ruby shouted out to the group of boys. They all turned around and faced her and have the red-haired girl with the same expression that Ruby couldn't fully understand so she chose to ignore it and just smiled and waved at the group of boys.

"Ruby, where've you been? We all thought that you moved away or something," exclaimed a white-haired boy with purple accents on his hair and wearing a white suit and a purple tie.

"Greene told me everything that happened during the summer. My dad took me back home as soon as graduation ended and Zwei broke my scroll so yeah…" Ruby scratched the back of her head and smiled weakly to show that she was sorry for leaving the six boys in the dark for two months, "Oh and Greene's here's your wallet. You dropped it earlier today before you left the airport." Greene was confused but he placed his hand to where he usually kept his wallet and felt that it was nonexistent. On the other hand, Ruby rummaged all through her pockets before pulling out Greene's wallet and gave it to him.

Greene's eyes had a scared look when he realized that Ruby had his wallet. "D-did you look inside my wallet?" he asked nervously, his face turning all red from fear and embarrassment that Ruby might have actually peeked into an area of the wallet that he never shows to anyone, not even his sisters.

"Yeah, I didn't know whose wallet it was so I had to look for something so that I could return it to the owner and now, I've returned to you," Ruby gave a cheerful smile which entranced the green-haired boy in a daze-like state.

"Uh, yeah… thanks, I guess," he said quickly and turned around as fast as he could so that no one would be able to see the redness that was forming on his entire face.

"You guys heard any rumors on how we're going to be teamed up?"

"I heard from someone this morning that we would be teamed up based on our skills. I'm not really sure if that's how we're going to get teamed up. I don't know about you guys but I'm definitely am going to try on this one for real."

"Hmph," a feminine voice behind Ruby scoffed, "You all just going to show off and see who would be the best just to get paired up with Ruby." The red-haired girl turned around and saw a violet-girl who was wearing a white and violet blouse and a combat skirt, just like herself.

"Vi!"

"Hey, Ruby! I missed you so much," giving the red-haired girl a wide hug, "Where've you been? I thought you left me or something…"

"Aww, you know I'd never do that!" Ruby exclaimed with a toothy grin, "I've just been at home with dad and Zwei broke my scroll."

"Did you bring cute wittle Zwei with you?" Vi asked clearly wanting to play with the dog.

"Dad wanted to keep Zwei with uncle just to annoy him. Dad thinks that Zwei needs to spend some time with uncle Qrow. But dad will probably send him the usual way. You know how he is." Ruby was happy that she was able to see her best friend again since their graduation from Signal Academy. Vi sighed in defeat that she wasn't going to see the cute and adorable dog for a while.

The two have been best friends ever since their first birthdays which coincidentally landed on the same day. The two girls had also shared everything between each other whether it be secrets like who they liked. Being Ruby, she had not noticed any boy that was to her liking while growing up. Ruby was probably busy falling in love with weapons rather than actual people. If Ruby was honest at the moment, she'd most likely reject everyone's advances towards her, if there were any, and she'd marry her own sweetheart Crescent Rose.

A tall blonde woman near the cliffs stood up straight and somehow was able to amplify her own voice as she was heard by the guys and the two girls who were farthest from the crowd that had gathered nearby.

"All first year students please step on one pedestal. You may not share your launch pads with each other." The entire student body did as the woman asked. Vi and Ruby stood next to each other while waiting to be launched into the Emerald Forest. "Your partners for your entire stay here at Beacon will be chosen today. The first person that your eyes will meet with will be your partner for your next four years here at Beacon. I suggest that you meet a student that you know you will work well with. You're objective for this initiation is to find a ruins in the middle of the forest and you and your partner will pick a relic and return here as fast as possible. You will have to stay vigilant as none of the staff at Beacon will help. If not, then you will die. You will not be graded for anything other than your success at returning here alive. That will be all and good luck to all of you."

A bunch of students were groaning when they heard how their partners would be chosen.

"Hey, Ruby."

"Yeah?"

"Good luck out there!" Vi extended her arm towards the red-haired girl and clenched her fist. Ruby saw this and returned a fist bump, "Let's try to meet each other as fast as possible."

"You too Vi! And yeah, let's be partners like old times!"

One by one, the first year students of Beacon who were standing at the pedestals were being catapulted into the air to the forest. As Ruby's and Vi's turn neared, the readied themselves into a stance and secured their gear. Not a second later, VI was launched into the air along with the rest of the first years and Ruby soon followed afterwards.

Ruby, while flying in the air, looked in the general area where Vi was heading and took out Crescent Rose and transformed it into its scythe form and pointed the end of the barrel towards the ground. She accelerated faster and faster towards the ground and was nearing the ground and Ruby started firing her Sniper-Scythe to break and reduce the velocity that she was plummeting at to the ground.

When her descent was slowed down enough from the recoil of her weapon, the red-haired girl extended her scythe forward to latch onto a tree. With her impact on the tree, she slid down the trunk of the tree.

Now safely on the ground and not flying in the air, Ruby started running to where she thinks Vi would have landed.


	2. Hurt

Edit (06/18/16): A couple sentences and some grammar editing.

* * *

Ruby ran as fast as she could in the general direction where Vi was supposed to be. Having a lot of shrubbery in her way, Ruby couldn't really use semblance seeing that she would probably tear her hood that she had received from her mother before she died. Ruby had enough sense to preserve the only thing that her mother had given her. That and her injury.

To make progress in getting to Vi faster, the red-haired girl transformed her weapon to its war scythe form to cut the occasional bush or vine. Ruby didn't want to disturb the greeneries but her hood was more important than a few thorns that could rip her hood and it was a better and faster than just finding a way around the shrubbery if she was to find Vi as fast as possible.

After running and hacking at what seemed like five minutes through the forest without using her semblance, she found herself in a small clearing in the forest. Deciding not to stop for anything, Ruby continued to run forward but as she ran, she felt the ground tremble and she immediately knew that some creature of Grimm was tracking her. The girl immediately stopped running and readied into a fighting a stance. Ruby slammed the edge of her scythe to the ground.

By then, she heard the growls of Beowolves and probably some Ursa minors along as well. Ruby could feel adrenaline rush throughout her entire body as excitement to fighting the Grimm once again after a long time not fighting any creatures of Grimm. Signal Academy only taught them how to use weapons and held the occasional sparring between two students but never the creatures of Grimm. Only theories on how to fight against the Grimm

A single Beowolf came out behind Ruby and dashed at the girl to lunge at her with its claws. Ruby, being the faster between the two, lifted her scythe as if it was almost weightless and spun around swinging her scythe towards the foolish Beowolf that thought that it could take out an isolated girl in one swipe. Ruby, already facing the Beowolf, turned her hips around and her scythe had gone through the Beowolf's torso. Ruby fired a shot and the scythe cleaved the Beowolf horizontally into two. As the dying Beowolf laid dying, other Grimm charged at Ruby.

Staying silent, Ruby smirked at the Grimm creatures around her. She was at a small clearing so she knew that her cloak wouldn't be ruined. She swung her scythe up in the air and rotated her sweetheart so that the blade faced the opposite way. Ruby then put all her strength into hitting her blunt side of her scythe onto the Beowolf in front of her. She shot Crescent Rose once more to launch her forward flinging to another Beowolf.

Ruby used her semblance to create more leverage to slice the Beowolf in front of her. Once she got a meter close, Ruby sliced the poor Grimm in half. After the Beowolf started dissolving into nothing, Ruby caught her breath and surveyed the Grimm that was surrounding her. There were at least five more Beowolves and two Ursa Minors. She could take them on by herself. Ruby was confident enough to fight them alone without any help.

Standing in a readied stance, Ruby let the Beowolves come at her before she jumped up into the air and used her speed to spin her scythe vertically, cutting down all but one Beowolf. Ruby landed on the ground gently on her feet and within a split second, she rushed in front of the Grimm with her immense speed and simultaneously beheaded the Beowolf. That left two Ursas left.

By the time she had wiped out the Beowolves, Ruby was panting heavily. The girl clutched her chest and stabbed Crescent Rose to the ground to catch more of her needed breath. At the same time, the two Ursas were charging straight for the tired girl. Ruby, still short on air, saw the two Grimm and grabbed her sweetheart, transformed it to its storing mode, put it on her back, and got out of the way. _I can still do this_ , she thought to herself although clutching her left chest to ease the pain that she was experiencing, _I can still do this_.

Using her semblance once more, she revolved around one of the Ursas so that it could confuse the large Grimm somehow. When she felt that she was slowing down and her chest was restricting her from enduring her own immense speeds, she took out Crescent Rose and shot two rounds onto the ground which boosted the girl up in the air. As she had mentally planned, the Ursa was confused and was frantically searching for the human with a red hooded cape around it.

Up in the air, Ruby pointed her sniper rifle at the Ursa's head and shot once and ran out of ammo. To her surprise, the bullet pierced through the Ursa's armored head and it drop down to the ground dead. Ruby landed on the on top of the dead Ursa and quickly grabbed a full magazine from her back pocket and replaced the empty magazine, putting the empty case to pocket where the full magazine had been. In front of her was the last Ursa that she had to fight but unfortunately for the red-haired girl, Crescent Rose was getting heavier and heavier by the second as Ruby's breath was getting shorter and shorter. The pain that seared through her chest was at the point that it was now unbearable. _Just one more, Ruby… You can do this…_

Ruby mustered all the strength that she had left and cocked her gun and pointed the heavy gun towards the remaining Ursa. She shot once. The recoil pushed the girl onto the ground. She aimed at the Ursa again and shot once more. The recoil from the sniper rifle made Ruby lose grip of Crescent Rose and the High Caliber Sniper Scythe flew a few meters to Ruby's right.

Exhausted, Ruby tried to crawl to get her weapon but her legs had already given up on her. Knowing that her body had already reached its limit and just laid down on the grass and faced the bright blue sky. Ruby knew that the Ursa was still alive when it growled loudly and she felt the ground in which she had laid was vibrating violently and she assumed that it was charging towards her.

Ruby was expecting to be trampled very soon so she closed her eyes and waited to be killed. _I should have listened… Ruby, why do you have to be so stubborn? Yang knew that this was going to happen even before I came here. Why didn't I listen?_ Ruby was now contemplating over her death that was about to come any moment.

Ruby waited but nothing had happened other than the tremors of the Ursa violently running towards the incapacitated girl had stopped. Ruby opened her eyes and turned her head to where the charging Ursa was only to see it slowly dissolving into nothing. Besides the Ursa was a human figure was facing the opposite direction from the girl and with Ruby's tired eyes, she was not able to recognize who the person was until she fainted from exhaustion and the adrenaline from her body slowly going back to normal levels.

* * *

 _I knew it! I should've been there sooner!_

 _Someone help me!_

 _Hey, is she okay?!_

 _I knew it! I should've killed those Ursa when I saw them! Hey can you see this?_

 _Help me carry her weapon. It's too heavy for me._

 _Hey there, bestie, we're here at the temple ruins. I'm going to let you rest until all the guys get here._

 _Hide Ruby now!_

 _Hey there again, bestie… We're going back now. I should've been there a lot sooner… I hope your sister isn't going to kill me…_

* * *

Two years earlier…

* * *

"I'll see you later dad!" Ruby grabbed her head phones from the couch where she had accidentally slept at last night watching her favorite show.

"Alright," a voice replied, "Stay safe out there, my baby girl."

Ruby groaned and said, "I'm not a baby anymore, dad!"

Ruby's father appeared from the kitchen and gave a small laugh, "I know, I know. You're still my youngest daughter and I love you. And would you kindly help me with some shopping since you're going to Vale anyway," Ruby's dad pulled out a scrap of paper from his apron and some lien to pay for the goods, " Here's the stuff that we need for next week and I've added in some extra money so go treat yourself with some cookies," Ruby's silver eyes glowed with absolute delight and gave his dad a bear hug, "Dinner will be ready when you get home so don't eat too much, okay? Oh, and Yang will be home sometime later. Happy Birthday, dear," The red-haired girl nodded with complete enthusiasm before leaving their apartment at Vale into the night.

Ruby took an air cab to downtown and paid the fare when she reached downtown. For her birthday, her dad gave her lien for her weapon's maintenance and better modifications for Crescent Rose. Her excitement on getting her sweetheart fixed and getting better mods overwhelmed the red-haired girl more than anything except that she was going to able to see Yang once again after she entered Beacon as a first year huntress-in-training. Ruby secured her headphones to her ears and started playing music on her scroll as she walked down the streets of Vale.

Her first destination was to get new mods for her Crescent Rose and get it installed and fixed at the same time. Ruby knew that she could've done the maintenance herself but her dad was using their apartment's workshop for some massive project that he needed to do for Signal Academy which probably meant more work for Ruby to do since his dad never helps him with the work that he assigns to his class as to not show any favoritism to any of his students. Ruby entered the shop called "From Dust Till Dawn". The shop wasn't exclusively only selling dust crystals and powders but if one played their card right, they could buy different merchandise other than dust and Ruby was there for that purpose since their "secret but legal" business were high-quality.

When Ruby entered, the store was filled with a variety of dust elements that she probably would never need since Crescent Rose was purely mechanized and the sniper was gas operated. Three people were at the counter talking to the old owner of the shop. Ruby didn't want to disturb them so she decided to go to the back aisle of the shop to read a magazine or two while waiting for the other customers to leave the shop.

Ruby walked to where the Weapon magazine and picked up a copy to read. Before she flipped the magazine, Ruby skipped the current song she was listening and searched for something that she liked. After a few seconds of tapping and swiping on her scroll, Ruby settled on a metal rock song and turned to the first page of the magazine, carefully examining every detail each page that she read through.

After a few minutes, Ruby finished the magazine that she was reading and looked over to the counter and saw that the three customers were still in front of the counter so she picked up a previous issue of the Weapons Magazine and started reading it to pass the time.

Ruby was enjoying the magazine that she was reading. She would go ask for the things that she needed even though it was already late into the night but she was going to see Yang again which made it all worthwhile when she felt a tug on her right shoulder and pulled her hood down. Ruby turned her head around her and saw a man wearing a black suit with a red tie along with a matching hat and red sunglasses. Ruby was staring at the man with confusion until he pointed to his ears. Ruby understood what he wanted so she returned the magazine to the book rack in front of her and took off her headphones.

"Yes?" Ruby asked.

"I said," the man said, "put your hands in the air, now!"

"Are you robbing me?" Ruby was uncertain whether the man was going to rob her of her money that she had from the way the man was angrily looking at her with his red-bladed sword.

"Yes!" he retorted.

" _Oh…_ "

Without warning, Ruby used her semblance to speed up her jump into the air and kicked the man with her two feet flat on his chest making the man fly off to the other side of the shop. Not a second later, another person wearing what seemed like a uniform appeared in front of Ruby and pointed a dust-operated gun at her face. Ruby used her semblance once more and gave the man a flying side kick to his stomach and Ruby, over exaggerating her attack, called upon her semblance to push the man all the way through the shop's window. The man broke the window and Ruby soon followed through. When the two had landed on the streets, Ruby kicked the gun away from the robber and used all her force into a single kick to the head to make sure that he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

Ruby grabbed her sweetheart and slowly stood up and turned her head towards the other men that were currently robbing the store. As she gradually stood up from crouching on the pavements a couple seconds ago, Ruby transformed Crescent Rose into its scythe form and then Ruby swung her weapon vertically multiple times in to ready herself in the fight that she was going to be in and to intimidate the robbers then slammed her weapon into the ground with the barrel of her sniper pointing at the robbers.

" _Okay_ ," the man, with the bowler hat and white suit, said, which set him apart from what Ruby assumed his henchmen. He then panned his head towards his henchmen, motioned with his head and commaded, "Get her."

The henchmen ran around the broken mirror, which Ruby thought was dumb because they could've just jumped over the window and could've initiated a fight a couple seconds earlier but they just exited from the door and sprinted towards the red-haired girl.

The man who was first amongst his peers swung his red-bladed sword at Ruby diagonally from the right. Ruby just jumped up in the air, revolved her entire body to her left on top of Crescent Rose, and planted her two boots on the side of the man's face with enough force to send him flying back to the front of the shop. She then spun around on top of her weapon and carried her sweetheart to the air before landing on the pavement. Ruby then examined her opponents' next move who were now rushing to her. Ruby pointed the sniper's barrel behind her and shot once to grant her enough speed to hit the guy to her left with the blunt side of her weapon and caused him to launch off high into the air and landed a few meters away from her and swung her weapon to her back and slam the back part of Crescent Rose onto the other guy that was trying to attack the girl.

The guy that flew high in the air was able to recover quickly and sheathed his red sword then took out a firearm, pointed at Ruby, then started firing at the girl.

With the help of Ruby's semblance, she was way too fast for the bullets to even hit her once and with Crescent Rose's high caliber rifle, the knockback also helped speed Ruby's approach to the shooter. With two quick dashes, Ruby collided with the man and flung him up in the air. The red-haired girl continued to move forward due to the abnormal amounts of speed that she had and stopped it by slamming her weapon onto the pavement once more. While the man was still up in the air, Ruby swung around above the street and shot herself up in the air and used the back of Crescent Rose to hit the man once more rendering him unconscious.

Ruby landed almost gracefully if she hadn't had to bear the weight of Crescent Rose. Nonetheless, the man wearing the white suit looked at the unconscious henchman and said "You were worth every cent," referring to the henchmen, "Truly, you were." He started walking forward while taking his cigar off of his mouth, "Well, Red, I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening," he dropped his cigar on the pavement and used his can to extinguish the lit cigar, "and as much as I'd love to stick around…," the man then pointed his can towards Ruby and a little reticle at the end of the cane went up, "I'm afraid this is where we part ways." The man shot a flare to Ruby who turned the barrel to face the floor and shot down and the knockback made Ruby fly up into the air to evade the flare that the man shot.

Rub landed on the ground and the man was already gone. She looked around to search for the henchmen's boss. Ruby then turned around to see that the man was already climbing up a ladder to a building's rooftop. _How did he get up there so fast?_ , Ruby thought. Behind her, the owner of the shop showed up at the entrance of his shop. Ruby sensed his presence and asked, "You okay if I go after him?"

"Uh huh," the old man said.

Ruby ran towards the building and shot Crescent Rose downwards to boost her up to the rooftop.

"Hey!" Ruby shouted to the man. He stopped from where he was standing.

"Persistent," he said with disgust in voice. Ruby didn't say anything rather prepared for anything that the man would throw at her. Crescent Rose by her side, Ruby was anticipating that the man would shoot at her again and jump down the building instead, an airship went up, hovering in the air. _How could I have not seen this coming?_ Ruby was in shock with the man's extravagant escape plan. However, Ruby's defense did not falter and readied herself once again for a possible counterattack.

The airship shone a bright light at Ruby, temporarily blinding her and allowing the man to get on board the airship. "End of the line, Red," he said then threw a red dust crystal at Ruby which made her look at it when it landed at her feet. The next thing Ruby knew was that she was thrown off to the side from an explosion and she was separated from Crescent Rose as she was blown off to the side.

Ruby was out of breath when she had hit her back on a wall. The glass behind her had shattered as well and when she did a quick inspection for injuries, she saw that a shard of glass had penetrated her back near her spinal cord. Her aura hadn't protected her in time. If she wasn't distracted by the dust crystal, she could've at least prevented serious wounds. She cursed at herself and tried to stand up to get Crescent Rose. Not feeling numb anywhere, she used her semblance to get to where her sweetheart had laid on the ground.

While she was rushing, she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her chest. Ruby continued running and grabbed Crescent Rose and started firing multiple times with its gun from at the airship. The man was not anywhere to be seen this time and was replaced by a woman whose face was blanketed by the darkness but her dress which glowed like fire was visible and her eyes were glowing as well. The woman deflected the shots that Ruby was blasting at the airship.

After depleting her ammo, the airship took off and Ruby felt powerless to do anything. She dropped Crescent Rose on the ground and collapsed on her side. Her vision was starting to get hazy but when she looked at her chest, a black glass shard was protruding from her left chest and it was the inside of her and had somehow managed to get past her aura. Luckily for her, blood wasn't flowing outside as the glass shard had blocked the blood from exiting her body. So if she were to pass out from the excruciating pain, she knew she'd be fine.

Ruby could handle a little pain but what she was feeling right now was too much for her to handle. Ruby then started to feel sleepier and sleepier until she fainted on a rooftop on the day of her own birthday. She was supposed to see Yang today but sadly, that wasn't going to be the case.

Ruby woke up hearing continuous faint beeping of a heart monitor and she felt as if an axe had cut her head in half. She tried sitting up but she felt a sharp pain on her left chest so Ruby decided to just lay on the bed. Ruby examined the room around her and she concluded that she was in a hospital and her theory was further proved when she tried to lift her right arm and saw that it connected to an IV drip.

Ruby looked to her left and saw that it was already noon and two months had passed since that event. Seeing this, Ruby felt tears trickle down her cheeks and she wiped them with her left hand. Lying down in bed for two months felt horrible as she felt really tired and weak from the slightest movement.

A minute passed by and nurse who seemed to be in charge of Ruby was walking by to check on her noticed that she was already awake and quickly turned around, probably to call a doctor. A couple more minutes passed by, Ruby heard the door to her right open and a man in a white coat entered.

"Hello, Miss Rose. Good to see you're awake," the doctor said, pulling out a stool and placed it to Ruby's right, "How are you feeling?"

"Everything hurts…," she replied weakly.

"Okay, that's normal. I can see that you can speak properly. I will let the nurse contact your family as soon as possible. They'll be here in probably ten minutes or so. But before that, I'll need to do some routine checkup on you just to make sure you'll be fine. Will that be alright, Miss Rose?"

"Yes…"

"Before I start doing your checkup, I must warn you, Miss Rose, if you wish to continue your studies as a huntress, your heart was permanently damaged and your back had been infected from exposure from an open wound at your back and everything is fine except that you can't use your semblance for any prolonged periods of time. I don't know whether it would be five minutes or one hour. But be assured that everything will be fine, Miss Rose."

Ruby had not said anything and stayed silent as she tried to absorb the only news that she could get from the doctor.

"Okay…"

* * *

Two years later…

* * *

Ruby woke up at the school infirmary and she clutched her pain to ease the pain that she was feeling at the moment. Ruby then looked at the clock which told the date of what today was. Ruby sighed when she saw that not a single day had passed since she collapsed at the Emerald Forest. The school nurse came in and saw that Ruby was awake and pulled a stool to Ruby's right.

"How are you feeling, Miss Rose?"

"I think I just need to rest for a bit. What happened to me?"

"Your friends brought you're here a couple hours ago and you've just been sleeping. The school doctor didn't see anything wrong. You'll need a little bit more of rest though so I'll just leave to allow you to rest more. Call for us if there's anything that you'd need." The nurse stood up from her seat and left the room and Ruby was left alone.

Feeling tired and sleepy, Ruby closed her eyes and wandered off to sleep.


	3. Welcome

Edit (06/18/16): Minor grammar edits.

* * *

A tall blonde girl burst through Beacon's infirmary and a certain red-haired girl was shocked and was almost scared to death from the loud bang the door had created as she tried to sleep her afternoon off and get some rest from overexerting herself at the first year initiation at Beacon.

"Ruby!" the blonde girl screamed at her

Ruby noticed that she only had one arm which was holding a plate of cookies, baked the way Ruby had always liked them. "Yang, you forgot your arm…," Ruby stated. Yang looked over to where her right arm was supposed to be.

"Oh," Yang stated emotionlessly.

On Yang's first year at Beacon, a war of a small scale had broken out, mostly concentrated on the school and the downtown area of Vale. Areas outside weren't as heavily affected but families were torn apart from the death toll. Throughout the war, Yang had lost an arm in a tense battle with one of the White Fang's commanders. In the end, Yang had claimed her first and last life but she was not to win the duel to the death unscathed. With the help of a former White Fang member, Yang and the fauness were deemed as heroes in the Battle of Beacon along with the rest of her team called Basil or BASL as they were named who was awarded with medal of a true hunter for their important and decisive contributions during the Battle of Beacon.

"That's not important," Yang snapped, "You should be more careful about your own body!" At this point, Yang had placed the plate of cookies on the bedside table and shoved a cookie into the poor girl's mouth. Choking on the cookie, Ruby coughed violently as she tried to spit the cookie crumbs out of her mouth. Yang didn't look like her usual self. The happy and uncaring blonde who now stood in front of Ruby was angry, pissed, and overbearingly protective. Her pupils were red instead of their usual lilac color. "Ruby Rose!" Yang had rarely used her full name but hurting herself was one of those rare moments, "Do you know how worried I was?! I called dad about you and he's been worried sick. So he going to come here in a couple hours during his prep period at Signal. And you are not going anywhere, baby sis until I say so." Yang's temper had gradually died down and her pupils were back to their normal state. She then revealed a bag behind her and retrieved two cartons of milk and handed it to Ruby.

For some reason, Ruby can never get how Yang manages with one arm sometimes especially like this where it seemed as if she had never lost an arm in the first place.

"Here, sorry for choking you and getting angry at you," Yang apologized genuinely, "You know how worried I get when it comes to you…" Yang looked away from Ruby to hide the emotions that she didn't want to show her younger sister but looked back at her sister with a genuine smile. Yang then kneeled down by Ruby and gave her a wide and tight hug that communicated everything that Yang wanted to say to Ruby. "Don't scare like this anymore, please Rubes."

"I'm sorry, Yang…," Ruby replied, returning her sister's hug with one hand while reaching for another cookie with the other hand, "I knew I shouldn't have used my semblance but I was having fun that I forgot…."

Yang was still hugging Ruby and she was able to grab a cookie behind her sister but the door opened silently and a violet-haired girl and a black-haired fauness had entered the room. Yang broke the hug and stood up to wave at the fauness.

"Hi there, Ruby," the fauness said. The violet-haired girl merely waved.

"Hi, Vi. Hi, Blake," said the two sisters. The two girls by the door then approached Ruby and sat down on stools next to Yang.

"What's kitty doing here? You fawning over my cute and adorable sister?" Yang teased the fauness who seemed unaffected by her witty remarks.

"No, just checking on my partner who ran off at a moment's notice when she heard her sister was in the infirmary," she replied in a cool manner before revealing a dust-powered bionic arm.

"U-uh…," Yang stuttered, "T-thanks…" Usually, Yang would have made another rude remark but she blushed and was left speechless and simply took and installed her bionic arm without another word. Ruby noticed this and her mouth was left agape with disbelief that her sister had been left speechless from a single sentence from the fauness and awkward silence followed soon after.

"Anywayyy…," Ruby said to break the silence, "Thanks for visiting guys. I'm fine, really. I mean I should just get up right now and have some cookies and milk and then go to the banquet hall where first years are supposed to be having a sleepover and then sleep right next to Vi and have some fun because you know, that's cool."

"No, Ruby Rose," Yang snapped, "You are to spend the night here at the infirmary until the school nurse releases you but seeing that she had not signed anything yet, you are staying in your bed and you're going to just have cookies and milk. No more, no less. We're going to have the party at my team's room tomorrow when you're out of the infirmary."

"Aww," Ruby pouted, Vi smirked, and Blake just face palmed, "you're no fun Yang."

Yang simply turned around and showed herself to the exit and slammed the door. Blake followed soon after and Vi stayed behind to talk to Ruby.

"So, Bestie," Vi said, "I'm sorry for not finding you sooner. But I'll tell you some good news after you get out of here, okay?" Ruby just nodded and grabbed another cookie and drank the milk her sister gave her. "Ruby, you'll be so glad when you get out of this place," Vi said very cheerfully.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see," Vi replied, "I better go, and my teammates need me to help them get the dorm cleaned up." Vi approached Ruby and promptly squeezed her hands, "Get better soon, Ruby!"

"Okay, I will! Thanks for visiting me Vi," Ruby said happily.

Vi then started to head for the door when she remembered something. "Oh and uh, once you get out of there, Professor Goodwitch wants to see you personally in her office. She said something about your condition or something like that. Could be just about your semblance or who knows? Anyway, I'm glad you're safe, bestie."

Ruby smiled and saw Vi leave the infirmary and was left by herself again as when she woke up earlier.

Ruby had just woken up with a book on top of her stomach. _Must've slept while reading_ , she thought. Ruby then lifted the book and moved it to the bedside table and sat upright. She had left a couple cookies uneaten the night before and Ruby suddenly had the urge to eat cookies so she took one, ate it in one bite, and was now satisfied.

While she was finishing the cookies Yang left her yesterday, Beacon's only nurse came inside with a clip holder on her right hand. She then took stapled pieces of paper that was apparently on the foot of the bed in which Ruby was lying on. The nurse looked through the pages individually before glancing at Ruby

"Miss Rose," the nurse said, "Based on your medical history, you should be fine without being here for at least twenty-four hours. So I've gone through your release form and you're free to go. I just need your signature here," the nurse pointed to a blank line and handed over to Ruby a black pen and she signed her signature before standing up properly from the bed, "Before you go, I've been ordered by the headmaster for you to meet the headmaster in her office yesterday."

Even though Ruby had already heard this from Vi, she didn't want to disrespect the nurse and nodded and thanked her. The nurse smiled and pulled out a piece of candy for Ruby and Ruby happily accepted and ate the candy before leaving the infirmary.

Ruby walked through the hallway that connected the school to the headmaster's office through a single elevator. Ruby entered and pressed a button that led to the headmaster's office. She then waited a couple seconds as the elevator lifted the girl to the floor where the headmaster was.

When the elevator doors opened, she saw the headmaster sitting in a chair across from her and a desk In between the two of them.

"Miss Rose, I was expecting you. Please sit down," she motioned with her right hand to a chair in front of her desk and Ruby complied and sat down, "Miss Rose, do you have any idea why you are here today?"

Ruby shook her head and said, "No, but is it about what happened to me during the initiation?"

"Yes, but more importantly, I received your medical papers when you had applied for Beacon and it tells me about your condition regarding your semblance. Your doctor has stated that you are 'incapable' of fighting for a long period of time and that you tend to faint after you exceed your limit," she said emotionlessly which naturally gave the red haired girl the impression that the blonde headmaster would kick her out of the school if she said something wrong, "So I will ask you this one question. How badly do you want to become a huntress?"

Ruby was confused at the question that the headmaster had just asked but she answered anyway.

"More than anything."

"I see," the headmaster stated, "That should be all I need from you. Miss Rose, head down to the first year dormitories at room one hundred twenty-five. I believe I should leave it as a surprise for you to find out who your teammates are by yourself."

When the blonde headmaster had finished speaking, Ruby saw her break a smile amidst her stern facial features. This made Ruby smile as well and she thanked the newly appointed headmaster of Beacon repetitively and dashed the elevator and excitedly pushed the button for the elevator to go down.

Once the doors opened, she ran towards the dorm hall without using her semblance and she soon found herself in front of the room that Professor Goodwitch had told her to go to.

Ruby reached out a hand and held the doorknob for a while as excitement filled her entire body and she was at the point where Ruby couldn't stop herself from containing her squeals and laughter. Ruby slowly rotated the doorknob and pushed the door open and saw Crescent Rose immediately on top of an unoccupied bed. Besides her sweetheart was Vi on her scroll doing something. Ruby went wide-eyed as she saw her best friend in the dorm room she is going to be in for four years. Just to be sure, Ruby looked at the dorm room number and it said "125" precisely as professor Goodwitch had said.

"Hey there, bestie," Vi cheered, "You miss me?"

Ruby ran next to Vi and fell down on the bed next to her and buried her face in Vi's pillow. "This is so much softer than the pillows in the infirmary," Ruby said and emphasized it by moaning into the delectable softness of the pillow but no one can beat Ruby's Zwei pillow-slash-plush that his dad had dropped off since she forgot the pillow at her dad's office at Signal academy which was the king of softness yet sturdy enough for a pillow fight.

Someone behind Ruby cleared their throat in a deep voice. Ruby turned around and saw Vi's very own twin brother, Lucian Fleur.

"Hey, Ruby. Hope you're feeling better but please keep your moment of pleasure to yourself," he stated which caused the red haired girl to redden her cheeks instantaneously and smiled sheepishly. She had forgotten that there were more than just two people in a team and she had to share her room with two other people.

"Ehehe," Ruby scratched the back of her head, "Who's my partner?" As soon as she had finished asking, Ruby felt multiple pokes on her back and she turned around to face Vi.

"You're looking at her."

If Ruby's lips could stretch endlessly, Ruby's lips that formed a smile would have reached the end of the universe if she had wanted to do so. The smile soon turned into squeals as she hugged the violet haired girl tightly. Luckily for Vi, she had already gotten used to Ruby's bear hugs that hurt a lot when she first met Ruby at Signal Academy.

"Ohhh!" Ruby squealed, "We'll be partners for four more years! I'm so happy! But how did we become partners?" Ruby was curious as to how they became partners but she was happy nonetheless.

"Remember when you were fighting those Grimm?"

"Yeah," Ruby replied forlornly.

"I found you in lying on the ground, Crescent Rose was probably two meters away from you, and it was a good thing I got to you when I did. That Ursa was so close to trampling you in your sleep."

"Hey, what about me helping with carrying that heavy piece of metal?" Lucian added while his back faced the two girls.

"That was just it, Luke. You just carried Crescent Rose," Vi snapped back.

"Don't call my sweetheart a piece of metal!" Ruby retorted, "Crescent Rose is a fine work of art for weapons that was created by me."

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Now I have to finish some paperwork since I'm the leader of this team and you don't even value my opinions so what does it matter anyway…"

"That's just too gloomy, Luke."

"Well, it's true!"

"We're sorry for teasing you too much, Lucian," Ruby apologized, "and thanks for carrying Crescent Rose here."

"U-uh," he stuttered briefly, "Y-yeah."

"Speaking of team, who's your partner, Lucian?" Ruby asked.

"His name Dewitt Lars. He wasn't part of our group and I think he moved here from Vacuo from his choice of clothing and his weapo-"

"Yeah, yeah, Luke. We get it. You're smart with history and all that stuff," Vi interrupted.

"See what I mean? You just don't value what I have to say at all!"

The twins were having a fight and Ruby was aware that the tension between the two hadn't been good lately ever since they met at the cliffs for the initiation. Suddenly, Ruby's scroll vibrated from her pocket and she took it out.

Yang was calling Ruby and she excused herself from the bickering twins and went outside and answered the call.

"Hey Yang," Ruby said through the scroll.

"Hey sis, you still up for my offer?"

"Offer?" Ruby had already forgotten what Yang had proposed to her yesterday. Probably because Ruby had a lot in her mind lately mainly concerning about her health.

"Come to room, remember?"

"Can I invite Vi?"

"Sure."

"Thanks. Love you, Yang."

Ruby wanted for Vi to be away from his brother for a while so she can think things through and Ruby can help the twins whatever they were dealing with. But first, Ruby wanted to have some fun with her best friend at Yang's place.

Ruby went back inside the dorm room and the twins had finally stopped arguing about whatever they were fighting about. A couple seconds later, Ruby's scroll had vibrated once again and looked at it.

There was a single message from Yang and when Ruby opened it, it displayed the room number that team Basil was residing in.

Ruby hid her scroll and went over to Vi then grabbed her arm and starting dragging her across. To her luck, Vi didn't fight back and just let herself be taken away by the red haired girl. Once Ruby got Vi into the hallway, Vi asked Ruby to let her go and she did as she was asked. VI straightened herself up and sighed, "Ruby, I'm sorry for earlier. Luke and I are not having the best of days this month. Everything is just messed up…"

"Don't worry, Vi. Let's have fun first and I'll help you patch up things with Lucian later."

Vi simply nodded unenthusiastically.

The two went to the third year dormitories and headed to the room number that Yang had given them. They entered and saw that Yang was wearing an apron, an unusual sight to behold, and Blake was lying on her bed, minding her own business and reading a book.

"Rubes! Come on in! I'm just going to finish baking these cookies and I'll be there with you," Yang said with a wink. Ruby just smiled in response. Blake saw them and motioned her right hand towards two empty seats. The two then took upon the offer and sat down as they were asked to.

Ruby waited for the cookies to arrive while Vi took her scroll out and started sending messages to a bunch of people that Ruby couldn't see who it was. It didn't matter to her anyway. A couple minutes pass by, Yang came out with a plate full of cookies and a jug of milk. A girl behind Yang, had blue hair, and was wearing a cyan nightwear, came out of the kitchen holding six mugs for their entire team plus Ruby and Vi. She placed the mugs on a nearby desk and faced the two first year students.

"You two must be from team Lavender, if I'm correct?" she asked.

Vi nodded with a fake smile and Ruby noticed this. _It must be really troubling her_ , she thought to herself, _and team Lavender? That is so cool! I'm at the end though…_

"Greetings, my name is Aqua Cinthe. I'm a third year huntress-in-training, I'm also the leader of Team Basil, and I'm your sister's partner. I assumed that you've already met Blake so I'll cut to the chase," Aqua said in a cheerful and graceful manner, "Welcome to Beacon. Ruby Rose and Violette Fleur, I hope your stay her at Beacon will be a terrific one."

"Thanks," said Ruby with a wide grin. Vi looked at her and became somewhat relaxed now.

"Dig in," Yang yelled out loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room but soft enough to not disturb the neighbors.

Ruby passed on cookies to Vi who heartily ate the freshly baked goods and Ruby started eating some of the golden treats.

"By the way, who's your other team member?" Ruby asked curiously.

"Her name's Weiss Schnee. She's probably doing some homework in the library or something," Yang answered, "Weiss' should be back in a couple of minutes of join us with your welcoming party. So save some cookies for her. I didn't get to bake as much since you know… yesterday…"

"Don't sweat it, Yang," Ruby hugged her sister, "I'll get better in no time now that I'm attending Beacon, right Vi?"

Vi nodded again, feeling a little bit embarrassed that Ruby put her on a brief moment of spotlight. Vi then ate more cookies to relax herself more from her fight with her brother from earlier.

After having a dozen cookies and half a jug of milk, Ruby felt full and wanted to lie down in bed but Yang stopped her and said that she would feel bloated when she just lies down in bed after eating a lot so Ruby decided to stay put where she was right next to Vi.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door and opened it without even asking for permission to enter. A girl wearing a white skirt just like Ruby's but white and her hair was tied to the right side of her head.

"Welcome back, Weiss," Blake said. Weiss curtsied and entered the dorm holding a textbook, a notebook, and a couple of pencils for writing.

"Welcome to Beacon, you two. How is your stay at Beacon so far?" she asked.

"It was pretty fun but Ruby didn't get to do anything since she got sent to the infirmary," Vi replied.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Weiss stated.

"Nah, it's cool," Ruby said, "it was my fault anyway. I used my semblance too much that I passed out. I never seem to listen to my doctors. Hehe."

"Well, you should take care of yourself more," Weiss started as she grabbed a cookie and nibbled on it.

"I will," Ruby said and smiled.

The six of them chatted until it was late into the night. Aqua wanted to send the two back to their dorm room but Weiss and Yang insisted that they should stay over for the night. Blake had said nothing and Aqua was pressured to agree to let the two stay just for the night.

Yang set up a large airbed for the two to sleep on while Weiss took out spare pillows from the cabinet drawer near their bathroom, and Ruby sent a message to Lucian telling him to bring her Zwei pillow to her. Lucian appeared in front of the door in less than five minutes and Ruby took the pillow from him and said goodnight.

Aqua told the five girls that it was time for the light to be off and the six went to sleep soon after.


	4. Class

Edit (06/19/16): Changed some stuff and grammar.

* * *

Ruby rose up from the bed and looked around to see that she was the last person to wake up. It was still six o'clock and it was too early for many students at beacon since classes don't start until nine o'clock. Vi was on her scroll again and Weiss was wearing a bathrobe, probably waiting for Yang to get out of the shower and that would be in an hour or so considering that Yang took so much time grooming her hair and it would take so much longer since she only has one arm now. Ruby buried her face in the comfort of the Zwei pillow before standing up on top of the airbed. Ruby grabbed her pillow and said good morning to Vi who returned the gesture.

"Weiss," Ruby called out, "Yang will take long time so do you want to you our dorm's bathroom?"

Weiss heard the red haired girl and took a few seconds to decide. Weiss then walked towards Ruby and said yes. She then followed Ruby who waved to Vi and went out of the dorm room.

Weiss went out of their room in just a bathrobe but getting a shower as quickly as possible would be better for her anyway. Weiss brought along with her usual clothes and Ruby just had a pillow in tow.

The two went inside the dorm and the two guys of team Lavender were still asleep in their respective beds to the far right of the room which separated the girls from the boys. Ruby jumped onto her bed and cuddled with her pillow, making childish noises that Weiss couldn't comprehend even if she tried listening carefully. As Ruby played with her pillow, she heard the bathroom door close and Ruby immediately stood up from her bed and snuck out of the bedroom. If Yang had seen her exploring Beacon right after she just recently got out of the infirmary, she would be an absolutely terrifying sister that even Zwei, a normally fearless and brave dog, would cower beneath Yang's foot. In other words, ever since Ruby was almost killed on the day of her birthday, Yang changed a lot. Yang became an overprotective mother-like sister who would do anything to keep Ruby safe at all costs.

Ruby, with her pillow and pajamas with dog slippers, Ruby explored the garden, her favorite part about schools here at Vale. It reminded her so much about her mother, Summer Rose. Even though she had vague memories of her as a small child, she remembered what she had always looked like and that she had a scent of roses lingering around her wherever she went and Ruby had acquired that trait as well but she had something that differed from her mother: she leaves petals of roses whenever she had used her own semblance. But since her life-threatening injury, the rose petals that she had left were decreasing over the course of months.

With the memories that came back from visiting gardens gave her, Ruby liked to reminisce about the simple days when her mother was still alive. Ruby walked through the cement pathway and glanced at the different flowers and plants that thrived in Beacon's large garden. As she continued to look at the different lush life forms that inhabited the garden, bees gathered around the girl's long hair and she noticed this too. Ruby knew to just let the bees do their own thing and not bother them or they'd sting her, a lesson she learned as a child growing up in Patch.

The serenity of the garden put Ruby at peace so much that she wanted to just lay down on one of the grass patches and never leave there. Unfortunately, she has classes later morning and she had many more places to go.

She exited the gardens and the bees went back to their hives. Ruby's next destination was the school observatory. When she reached there, it was locked so she thought that it might be a better idea if she snuck in at night or sometime during one of her free periods if she were to get any. Ruby then decided to head back to the dorms for now.

On her way back she met up with a group of three boys that Ruby instantly recognized.

"What're you doing out here so early, Ruby?" Noir asked, "Shouldn't you be sleeping at the infirmary to get healed up or something?"

"Don't tell, Yang that I'm out here wandering around the school!" Ruby hissed, "But the nurse already cleared me yesterday. Sorry I couldn't visit and tell you guys because Yang invited me to stay over their room for a night for a welcoming party."

"Don't worry about it, Ruby," Greene stated, "Anyway, since you're out here anyway, want to grab some breakfast with us? Ryuu's waiting for us at the cafeteria. I heard from Ryuu's brother that they serve really good chocolate muffins, one of your favorites."

"Sure," Ruby replied, "I'm getting hungry anyway."

"By the way, Ruby," Irvine added, "since you weren't at the team selecting event thing, the four of us got put together in a single team. It's called Gneiss or GNIS as this academy would say. Greene got selected as the leader of our team. Time for him to shine, don't you think, Ruby?"

"Hey!"

Ruby laughed and raised the pillow she was holding to her chest and hugged it tighter.

The three arrived in the cafeteria a couple minutes later and lined up for breakfast and the line wasn't long since it was still early for a lot of students to be up. The four got their food shortly, Ruby got a chocolate muffin and it was looking fantastically delicious and mouth-watering and a blueberry muffin, and they met up with Ryuu who was already halfway into finishing his food.

"Good morning, friends, Ruby," he greeted and resumed eating, "How are your first morning before school starts?"

Ruby nodded and the boys groaned somewhat audibly, indicating that they were not having the best of mornings.

"Greene just had to wake us up," Noir complained, "He knew I stayed up late playing video games and that classes start at nine."

"Well, I did warn you that I'd wake you guys up early yesterday," Greene retorted.

"Guys, I have to go. I don't want Yang catching me wandering on my own," Ruby said.

"See you in class, Ruby."

"Yeah, see you."

Ruby picked up the muffins she bought with her and headed back to her dorm and spotted Weiss sitting on top of her bed, drying her hair with a towel she borrowed from their bathroom. Ruby approached Weiss and extended an arm out to her, holding a blueberry muffin, "Here, Weiss. You can have this if you want to. I brought an extra one in case you or Vi were here."

"Thank you, Ruby," Weiss took the blueberry muffin and peeled the paper wrapper before biting onto one of the sides of the muffin, "This is very kind of you to do."

"No problem," Ruby grinned, "Before my mom died, she always told me to treat everyone nicely even if they were strangers because they might become my friends in the future."

"Oh…," Weiss' voice dropped its tone, "I'm sorry for your loss…"

"Has my sister never told you about our mom?" Ruby asked curiously.

"Unfortunately, no," Weiss stated, "She never really talked about her family but she's only opened up to us when we saw her crying about you being in the hospital for two months. I don't know if you were awake at the time, but my entire team visited you once two years ago."

"Really?" Ruby squealed, "Thank you so much, Weiss. That means a lot!" Ruby hugged the white haired girl who almost dropped her muffin if it weren't for Ruby's quick thinking, "Sorry. Hehe…"

"It's fine," Weiss bluntly stated, "Thanks for letting me use the shower by the way. I'm just lucky that those two boys over there are still asleep."

The two chatted for a while and Weiss changed to her school uniform before leaving team Lavender's dorm room. Ruby then took a shower and had to dry her hair as well before changing into the brand-new school uniform her dad had ordered for her.

While waiting for classes to start, Vi never went back to their dorm room which got her worried a little bit since she knew that her relationship with her brother was still sort of strained from yesterday's events. But first things first, Ruby needed to grab Crescent Rose, inspect her for deformities or broken parts before she went to class.

* * *

Ruby Rose entered her first class, Grimm Studies, and she proceeded to sit in a random sit, hoping that she would have a class with Vi, she waited there patiently but she was growing restless from the excitement of having her first day of classes at Beacon. Ruby shook her left leg repetitively to shed some energy that was building up from the wait until the class started.

While sitting down minding her own business, Ruby saw Vi enter the classroom in a state of messy hair. Ruby waved to Vi who waved back to Ruby and went to sit right next to her. Soon, all the members of team Lavender showed up as well and sat in front of the two girls.

After a while, the classroom was filled with students, both faunus and human, then an old man with a noticeable gray mustache and wearing a brown coat.

"Hello students, welcome to Grimm Studies. My name is Port and all of you students will address me as Professor Port. Starting today, I will be your teacher for all of your four years in Beacon. If you signed up your contact information beforehand, you should receive a file regarding the expectations and rules in class along with the class material. All things aside, let us have wonderful four years together!" Professor Port's mustache wiggled every syllable that came out of his mouth and Ruby found this very amusing.

Class went on for an hour and a half which was mostly about Professor Port recalling his hunter days as an adolescent and some about how to fight Grimm with a demonstration from a volunteer and Ruby was glad that class had ended since she was still excited for the other classes that she had for the day.

"Class, since this is your first day of classes, I will be kind enough to let you off without homework for today but do not expect it to be this way for the entire schoolyear. That will be all and have a nice day toady students," Professor Port ended the class with the statement and Ruby rushed out of class without using her semblance and by pushing through the other students that were trying to get out of the class to get to their next class.

In History of Remnant, Ruby and Vi, who caught up to Ruby somehow, was introduced to Professor Oobleck along with every other student present in class. Professor Oobleck always held a thermos on his right hand which Ruby thought was filled with coffee spiked with twenty or more sugars which might have contributed to his abnormally fast speed of talking and zipping around in class. Or it could be just his semblance.

After talking about how the four kingdoms of Remnant—Vale, Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral—was created from the ground and the discussion was cut off with the limited time each class has for each day. Professor Oobleck then assigned a small research paper that each individual student must write by next class. Hearing this, Ruby groaned since she knew that she would have to stay up really late just to get the paper done by tomorrow.

Ruby went through the day with Vi and with classes that would have made her fall asleep from the lengthy talking and the constant note-taking and Vi's encouragement was Ruby able to go through the day without sleeping in a single second. But the last class she had was what she had been anticipating the whole day, although she did look forward to meeting her new teachers and new weapons that might show up during the classes.

Ruby and Vi left the two boys, which the two had the same classes with the entire day coincidentally, and went to their final class: Combat and Technique taught by Ruby's uncle, Qrow. The two were one of the first few that were there. Ruby looked around and saw her sister with the rest of her team and she zoomed off to her side which surprised the tall blonde a little.

"Hey, Yang!" Ruby greeted, "What're you guys doing here?"

"In this class, all students of Beacon are mixed together for the first week then we will have separate rooms when we have to learn through textbook," Aqua answered, "But Professor Branwen probably doesn't need us to have textbooks. He'll most likely just have you first-years to spar against each other. We did that too on our first year here at Beacon."

When she heard that she was going to be sparring with another live person on the first day of school, Ruby immediately faltered and lost her bearings slightly. She knew that she'd have to fight someone if she were to become a huntress especially when there are humans on the loose aiming to hurt their own kind.

"Don't worry, baby sis," Yang assured the girl, "I'll be here for you when your match starts. Uncle Qrow's there too to stop the match if anything happens. I'll even start pushing people around just to get to you when you're in real trouble so don't worry about anything. Plus, everyone in my team knows what you're going through and they'll be glad to lend you some help." Aqua, Blake, and Weiss all smiled at Ruby to reassure her more and calm her nerves a little bit. "And Vi's here too. Your best friend also isn't going to let anything to happen to you, right Vi?"

"Right," Vi replied, putting a hand over Ruby's shoulder, "You should be fine, Ruby."

Ruby had initially thought that she would just be training with dummies as she had done most of her life after the incident two years ago. But seeing as she was in Vale's best hunter school and Professor Goodwitch allowing her to study in Beacon despite her medical history, Ruby would have to step outside her comfort zone and prove herself that she can be one of the best huntresses in Remnant and she had to train herself to overcome her problems with her semblance. Ruby had really missed the wind gushing past her as she used her speed to do anything she'd like.

Ten minutes after the Ruby and Vi settled in a seat on the sides of the small arena with team Basil, students poured in one by one or in groups as they sat in front of the small arena and the seats were quickly filled. Lucian and Dewitt sat next to Ruby's left and Ruby managed to say hello to the two who returned the gesture.

When every single student of Beacon was present, the headmaster entered in through a door and stood in the middle of the arena. "Alright, everyone here is accounted for and we will begin shortly." Professor Branwen produced a scroll from his pack strapped to her back. "As tradition started by headmasters before Goodwitch, first year students will be sparring for the rest of the class and the rest of you I expect a two-paged essay regarding the combat techniques that are going to be used today. Pick one student of your choosing and elaborate further. I expect them done by next week. Now, the screen behind me," Branwen said, pointing a hand to the large screen above him, "will choose two first year students to compete against each other. The selected fighters will fight until they are knocked out of the arena and or have they're aura drop down to critical levels. I wish the fighters good luck." Branwen then moved to the side of the arena and pressed a finger on his scroll. With that, the screen above him turned on and showed two boxes with a question mark in the middle. The headmaster tapped her scroll again and the boxes began spinning vertically.

"Violette Fleur from Team Lavender vs. Peter Nyx from Team Phoenix. Please step forward to begin your match."

"Wish me luck, bestie," Vi said to Ruby. Ruby smiled and nodded while Dewitt said good luck to her and Lucian simply ignored her sister. Ruby noticed this and vowed that she would fix whatever was happening between the two. Vi stood up and pushed her way through the seats to get up front. On the arena was her opponent with a bored look on his face waiting for her to get up on the arena with him.

Vi saw at how much the guy was underestimating her and she returned the bored look with a smug face and grinned at her opponent. She then took her time to get up on the stage.

When Vi got up at the stage, Ruby suddenly felt an urge to just jump up and shout good luck to Vi which she released and embarrassed herself when she realized that the two fighters were looking at her, Vi smiling and giving her a thumbs up, and everyone else in the room as well. She sat down and kept her mouth shut.

"Fighters, please ready your equipment before I begin the spar," Branwen announced.

Peter produced a large battle axe from his back and Vi took out her collapsible bo staff. Peter readied himself in a protective stance while Vi smirked and twirled her staff around herself.

"Are the fighters ready?"

The two nodded and their aura appeared in the large screen and a four minute timer started counting down and the fight between two students had begun.


	5. Overload

Edit (06/19/16): Changed some stuff and did grammar editing.

* * *

Vi blinked to the back of Peter and whipped her staff to her back. What she didn't expect was that Peter was nowhere in her line of sight when the staff had hit thin air. She had only heard a loud crash and the boy was gone. Vi took a couple steps back before seeing Peter up in midair with his battle axe in one hand and he flicked his wrist with the other.

Not anticipating his speed despite his heavy armor and two meter battle axe, Vi stood aghast as she failed to comprehend how a big guy like him was able to fly up in the air. With no time to react, boulders formed up all around the Vi except a vertical opening where Peter can slam his axe onto her. Vi looked around her seeing no chance to escape physically but she smiled at the boy anyway. In a split second, Vi placed her staff in front of her and prepared herself for another blink. Two seconds later, Peter's axe landed on the floor and Vi was behind him.

"Surprise!"

Vi hit Peter's back with a two quick blows and slammed the boy with her staff in the face with a severe force. Peter was taken aback with how fast she had reacted within seconds, probably milliseconds. Peter lifted up his axe and grunted, "You," he said, "I like you. Don't think I've ever seen anyone this fast befo-"

Vi saw the chance to hit him square in the face while he was talking and she held her staff at one end with two hands and swung them towards the arrogant boy's face like a wooden bat. If the boy didn't have aura, he'd probably be knocked out but sadly, he did have aura. Vi quickly glanced at the screen and Peter had at least sixty percent of aura left.

"You're feisty," Peter stated. He then flicked his wrist and boulders appeared from the floor, surrounding him and Vi jumped back defending herself for whatever was going to happen next.

The boulders levitated and spread out throughout the arena and after a couple seconds, every single boulder broke down into smaller and sharper fragments and Peter pointed the projectiles at the violet haired girl.

Vi saw this and prepared herself for multiple blinks. Peter didn't give her the chance and immediately grabbed a red powdered dust container from his back and crushed the vial with his gloved hand. He then flicked his wrist and the projectiles glowed red and flew at a straight path and Vi dodged and swerved around the projectiles and making sure that she was aware where Peter was in case he would attack her when she was caught off guard from the projectiles When one rock projectile had hit the floor, each would have a small explosion, not big enough to cause a huge tremor but big enough that Vi would have to move a little distance in order to get away from the explosion.

After the barrage of explosive projectiles was over, Vi took a single breath and Ruby in the seats below the arena cheered way too loudly which caught her attention. She then realized she had made a mistake of looking over to Ruby and smiling widely.

Vi turned around and saw the ceiling as she was smacked by a huge axe to her side with massive force enough to cause her aura to drop at least fifty percent. On the other hand, Peter still had sixty and Vi was left with forty percent.

In the seats, Ruby's eyes widened as she saw what she had done and guiltily sat down slowly and Yang sat next to her and put an arm to her shoulder and ruffled her hair.

"It's okay, baby sis," Yang assured, "Vi's going to push through."

Vi shakily stood up and grabbed the staff that landed to her right. She then rolled to the right to dodge the axe that swung down at her and Vi blinked behind Peter and struck a flurry of quick successive attacks which dropped his aura down to thirty percent. Peter fell down on the floor and Vi took this chance to get away from him since hitting an opponent while he laid down with his back facing up was an illegal move for most tournaments and sparring sessions.

Peter quickly stood up and Vi charged at the boy and blinked once in front of him catching him in surprise and Vi shoved the boy before hitting the boy with each end of the staff while making it look like Vi was dancing around the boy. She blinked again and again until Peter caught her arm and he tossed the violet haired girl to the side.

Vi recovered from the throw mid-air and he slammed his axe down at the floor and a line of sharp rocks rose from the ground and everyone was astonished at the display. Vi easily dodged the rock barrage and she blinked one more time and hit Peter's jaw and he was on the ground again. Vi took this chance to take the finishing blow, blinking above the boy and Vi pointed one end of her staff towards Peter and dropped down and landed but the staff was inches away from his face.

"The match has ended and I ask that both students please proceed back to their seats." Vi retracted her staff into a smaller compact and storable size and put it back to its holster on the side of her leg. Vi extended a hand to help Peter stand up but the boy slapped the hand away and stood up shakily by himself and headed down the arena. Vi shook it out of her head as she headed down the arena as well to where she sat next to Ruby.

"Good job out there," Ruby exclaimed, "You were like this," Ruby swung her hands around her to mimic Vi's fighting style, "and you like that! You were so cool when you were fighting that jerk! I mean, seriously? Who says 'I like you' during a fight? Psh. As if it could ever work!" Ruy was figuratively bouncing around filled with happiness but was physically jumping up and down on her seat.

Yang grabbed a single cookie from her pack and shoved it down Ruby's mouth which stopped the girl bouncing around like a crazed sugar-coated girl who has the need for sugar every other minute.

Ruby calmed down a little bit as she tried to savor every atom of the cookie. Vi laughed at her best friend and Ruby didn't mind them and was busy eating a cookie that Yang would probably never give another one since she would be busy with schoolwork along with her teammates.

The next couple fights were spectacular. Ruby was fascinated by the fights that had transpired. But what amazed Ruby the most was one fight where two girls were at a stalemate but the girl with gun-sword was able to achieve victory through her quick thinking and ability to spot an open and defenseless area within seconds. The other girl was tough to beat since her shield was almost impenetrable and she was able to cover herself exceptionally throughout the fight but the twin daggers girl pulled through using a distraction long enough to render the shield girl defenseless for a few seconds.

"Bruno Krieg from Team Blaze vs. Ruby Rose from Team Lavender," Branwen announced, "Please step up forward to begin you match.

When Ruby Rose heard her name, she stopped chewing on the scrumptious cookie and her jaw dropped in disbelief. Yang didn't expect Ruby to fight this early on but she pushed her baby sister forward and said, "I'll be here for you in case you get in trouble, okay? And remember to breath and relax. Also, don't think that everyone here is watching you. Just focus on your opponent, okay?"

"Ugh," Ruby groaned, "You're starting to sound dad." Ruby got up the arena and met the boy wearing very light armor, a gold-colored gauntlet, and casual clothing much like herself but she had a combat skirt of red and black instead of brown and silver.

"Fighters, please ready your equipment before I begin the sparring session," Professor Branwen stated. Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose from her back and put it in sniper mode and Bruno simply stood confidently with his gauntlet enlarged.

"Are the fighters ready?" Professor Branwen asked.

The two nodded and the screen above the two displayed their aura bar with their pictures below their aura bar.

"Begin."

Ruby rapidly took aim at the boy and shot three times, the recoil and knockback pushing Ruby back but she withstood the power of her weapon. Bruno plainly blocked the three shots that came his way and Ruby saw this as a good opportunity to use her "semblance a day" and shot through and got closer to the boy and transformed Crescent Rose into a scythe midway.

As Ruby was about to hit her opponent with her scythe, Bruno inserted a red dust vial into his gauntlet and punched the edge of the scythe without moving his body except his arms once. The tip of the scythe exploded and sent Ruby a couple meters back to where she came from.

Now that she can't use her semblance anymore her hope of winning had become slimmer since her only way of winning was through either a fast enough salvo that Bruno would get hit but that was out of the question when Crescent Rose was a bolt-action sniper rifle.

 _Come on, Ruby. Think. Think!_ Ruby stood up from where she laid on the ground and picked up Crescent Rose fully intact after the explosion. She observed anything that could help her. _He has fast enough reflexes that can even get past through my semblance… His gauntlet probably only works as a force field without those vials inserted and that blast must've used an entire vial._ Ruby looked at his body and he had a belt full of powdered dust vials that were collectively grouped based on their elements. _I have to try something._

Ruby walked up a little closer but still far away from his reach and Ruby just circled around the boy and waited for him to make a move but as she walked around in circles, her chest began to hurt from her use of her semblance. _Not now. You can do this Ruby. You can do this._

After a full revolution around Bruno, he turned around to face Ruby and instantaneously inserted another red vial into the gauntlet and slammed the floor with his fists which created small miniature pillars of fire that headed towards Ruby's direction.

Ruby didn't expect this but it was something nonetheless. The pillars of fires actually obstructed her view on Bruno and quickly turned around and aimed her gun to nowhere in particular, jumped, and began shooting repetitively which boosted the red-haired girl towards the raw dust user. Ruby swerved through the fire by firing shots in the opposite direction and Ruby soon found herself bumping into her opponent.

Bruno caught her arms and let her stand up before Ruby realized that he was just helped by someone who was supposed to be fighting her.

"Sorry!" Ruby shouted apologetically and swung Crescent Rose at the boy and the blade of the scythe hit the back of the boy and his aura dropped to eighty percent and Ruby had ninety left from the explosion earlier. Bruno instantly stood up and dusted off his clothes and said, "Don't feel too bad. I purposefully helped you out" Bruno smirked and Ruby got the meaning behind what he was trying to say and it somewhat angered the sugar infused girl. She ran, screaming a cute battle cry, and jumped up the air and boosted herself up with her own sniper rifle and once she was up in the air, she spun around vertically to create enough force and momentum and throw the raw dust user off balance. To her surprise, she landed next to Bruno and she kicked the boy right on his face.

Bruno stumbled back and grunted then aimed her gauntlet with a white dust vial inserted and shot ice shards towards Ruby. Without her semblance, she was incapable of evading them so instead, she immediately lifted Crescent Rose up in the air, aimed at the boy and shot until the magazine ran out. Of all the ice shards that were sent to Ruby's way, at least two or three had hit her once but they only hit the surface of Ruby's aura field. But the dust user wasn't as lucky as Ruby. He was hit by at least a dozen bullets and it dropped his aura levels down to a critical thirty percent which was enough to knock him out if Ruby had landed in another round into him.

Ruby leapt back in a safe distance and reloaded Crescent Rose at once. She wanted to use her dust rounds but those were expensive especially since buying them for Crescent Roes as custom orders made them two times more expensive than regular dust rounds that could be bought normally in a dust shop. But Ruby had to compromise for her safety. She allowed just ten rounds of the dust rounds to be shot before switching back to her normal custom fifty caliber rounds and they were still expensive.

Ruby wanted to end the bout really quickly as she was getting tired and her chest started hurting more and more but Ruby tried to hide the pain she was clearly in. Ruby shot twice at the boy and he was being cautious now that he actually started moving around to dodge and the confidence he had on his face earlier was entirely nonexistent by this point but it was replaced with fierce determination.

Ruby didn't want to fight any longer lest she passes out in the middle of their fight. So resolve this, Ruby shot three rounds at the boy as she charged forward towards Bruno and when one of them caught up to him, he tried blocking it and a yellow explosion followed after.

Stunned, Bruno was left with twenty-five percent of his aura left and Ruby had a ton more left. Ruby transformed her scythe into the war scythe mode and aimed for her body with enough force to leave the boy with enough aura to survive the blow.

As she was about to hit Bruno, immediately recovered his senses and ducked, making Ruby miss her chance into finishing the match and Bruno countered with a red dust infused punch which sent Ruby sprawling onto the other side of the arena. He looked up and saw the massive damage he had just dealt onto the girl and a pang of guilt welled up inside of him. He then inspected his gauntlet and saw that it had been bent from the force he had done and a few loose wires were exposed and he ignored it then approached Ruby to end the match quickly and apologize to the girl.

Meanwhile, on the seats, Yang didn't see anything out of the ordinary and got angry at the boy but she knew she couldn't do anything since the match still hasn't officially ended and she couldn't enter the arena unless something was happening deadly but Weiss saw otherwise. She noticed the loose wires that were hanging onto the gauntlet and she instantly stood up and unsheathed her rapier and headed for the arena, pushing people that were on their seats along the way.

Ruby rubbed her head and clutched at her chest and this time while she laid down on the floor. Yang saw this and followed after Weiss, speed walking, trying to beat Ruby's opponent from getting to her.

Ruby felt heavy and couldn't make her stand up and Crescent Rose was on top of her arm which was suddenly heavier than what she was usually used to. At this point, she wanted to give up but an inner voice saying that if she did, then she didn't deserve to become a hunter. Ruby's dream was to become one of Remnant's best huntress that would go down in history but if she knew if she gave up here, she might as well be sent home and farm or garden in Patch. Ruby pushed herself even though she was fully aware that she had passed her limit and shoved Crescent Rose to the side and stood up very slowly.

Ruby looked to where Bruno was and he was slowly getting closer to Ruby with an apologetic face but it didn't seem to her that she would let him go that easily. So she kneeled and slammed Crescent Rose on the floor and began shooting her rifle, with the blade of the scythe minimizing the knockback.

Bruno just blocked every single shot that Ruby fired with his gauntlets and inserted a green powdered dust vial and the entire gauntlet glowed green unlike that previous vials he had put in earlier. He jumped up high in the air with the help of his dust infused gauntlet and attempted to punch Ruby out of the arena.

When Bruno was halfway between Ruby and himself, everything seemed to slow down for Ruby when he suddenly crashed into a wall of ice and Ruby saw Weiss standing in front of her with her rapier pointed up into the sky where the ice wall had ended. Ruby was mesmerized at how Weiss had looked cool standing there like her very own hero in the books that she had read with Yang as a child growing up in Patch.

Yang grabbed her sister and away from the arena and Weiss, still on the arena, jumped to the side as Bruno smashed through the wall of ice and breaking the floor that his gauntlet had hit. Weiss then turned around and went down to help Yang with Ruby.

Vi, after seeing the events that had just unfolded, rushed to Ruby's side who was now unconscious as Yang carried her entire body with her arms and went out of the combat room and headed down the infirmary. This caused a little commotion when they saw the unconscious girl and the boy who almost killed the girl.

Qrow saw all of the things that had happened but had failed to realize that Bruno's gauntlet was defective which he was grateful for her third year students for and he ended the match abruptly and took Bruno Krieg off to the side and gave his scroll to one of his assistants to continue the matches between the first year students.


	6. Issues

Edit (06/19/16): Not much change other than grammar

* * *

Ruby was back in the infirmary again for the second time since she entered Beacon Academy. But this time, she woke up before Yang could even put her down in one of the beds that the school infirmary had.

"Yang, put me down!" Ruby pouted, "I can walk myself."

"Ruby, do you remember what happened a few minutes ago?" Yang asked in a serious tone.

"Yeah, I was sparring with this guy and Weiss comes to save me," Ruby retorted, "I'm not a little kid anymore, Yang. I can handle myself!"

"What do you mean by that?" Yang stated, "You were holding your chest as if you were in serious pain! You even used your semblance when the doctor told to never use it again! I let it go and this is what happens…"

"He never said that!" Ruby screamed and jumped off of Yang's arms, "He said that I can't use it for too long or I faint! You're not mom, Ya-"

Yang's eyes filled with anger and tears at the same time. But Ruby felt a sharp pain on her cheek as Yang slapped her in front of everyone that was present in the infirmary.

"I may not be mom but Ruby, dad and I are the only ones left here for you. Do you know how terrible I felt when you almost died on us? Do you have any clue what it did to dad? Dad and I fought every day because you were at the hospital in a coma! I had to give up on Blake. I'm in love with her and I still am but I did it so I could work late into the night as a bartender in some crappy rundown bar just to get some extra money for your treatment in the hospital. AND ALL THIS HAPPENED WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING BECAUSE YOU GOT CARELESS ON THE DAY OF YOUR BIRTHDAY!"

Ruby started tearing up as well but Yang still wasn't finished with venting out her frustrations, "Dad didn't even approve me working into the night when he found out because he knew that if Beacon caught me working in that bar, I'd be expelled. And even today Ruby, dad's been working extra shifts into the night to pay for everything including my arm, our tuition, and your medical expenses and I've been looking for jobs that would accept a worthless huntress-in-training. So don't you dare, Ruby Rose, don't you dare insult me or talk crap about the way I treat you. I'm doing this you're only sister that I have in this world and no one can replace you like mom.

Yang walked out of the room and Blake, hearing all of this ran after her and Ruby was left in the room with Weiss and Vi who were feeling terrible about the fight that the two sisters had and the revelation of what Yang had been doing. Hearing the reality of her injury, Ruby broke down into a fit of sobs of tears continuously flowed down her cheeks as she shoved her head down on a bed.

While crying, Ruby felt a warm hand rub her back as she continued to cry. Fortunately, it was just the three of them in the infirmary at the moment and Ruby had never cried as hard when she lost her mother.

* * *

Weiss and Vi helped Ruby get to her bed as she stubbornly refused to go out the infirmary and Weiss had to pry the red-haired girl out of the bed before they dragged her out of the hall to team Lavender's dorm room.

Vi thanked Weiss, who managed to grab some chocolate chip cookies, and laid down next to Ruby facing the wall. Vi took a single cookie and hovered it by Ruby's nose. Ruby tried covering her and her eyes so that she wouldn't be tempted by the cookie in which every single person who knew something about the long and red haired, cutest girl to attend Beacon academy that she could never resist cookies whatever she did to get her own thoughts away from eating a cookie.

Ruby took the cookie with her mouth and munched on the cookie and Vi giggled.

"I knew you could never resist it," Vi chuckled, attempting to lighten up the sad mood that was lingering in the air "I've known you for a long time, bestie. Not once have I ever seen you like this but I know you've seen me like that a multitude of times when we were back at Signal. Every single time you saw me like that, which was every time, you've never failed to bring back the smile on face. Now I want to give back to you what I naturally owe you. But first, you need to sleep. We'll talk all about this tomorrow when you're feeling all better, okay bestie?"

Ruby nodded weakly and soon fell asleep.

* * *

Lucian was tugging the sides of Ruby's pajama shirt to wake her up but Ruby swatted his hand off of her then went back to sleep. Dewitt, on the other hand, didn't pay the siblings and Ruby any attention and took his towel and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Vi accidentally fell asleep as she tried to comfort Ruby and make her to stop crying and messing up the bed sheets.

After several unsuccessful attempts at waking the girls from getting them late to class, Lucian finally gave up and simply said that they'd be late if they don't wake up soon and he waited outside the bathroom for his turn at the shower.

Half an hour passed, Vi woke up and looked up at the time and at the same time panicking since they were already late for classes. She shook Ruby and the red-haired girl simply moaned in annoyance.

"Ruby, we're late for class!" Vi panicked and headed to the shower while Ruby, still drowsy from sleep tried to get up only to fall down to the floor on her side and groaned in pain.

"I need to take a shower," Ruby moaned as she tried to get up from the floor and then headed to the bathroom not realizing that Vi was already inside taking a shower. Her eyes still blurry from the dried up tears that hardened during her sleep, she undressed herself and got inside.

Ruby suddenly heard a gasp and she rubbed her eyes to see Vi covering herself with her two hands.

"Sorry!" Ruby apologized, "I didn't see anything! My hair blocked everything, I swear!"

"It's fine," Vi stated, "Just get ready when I leave."

After showering, the two friends quickly dropped by the cafeteria and to Ruby's delight, they only had a handful of strawberries left and she shared with Vi as they rushed into their first class.

Professor Port was lecturing on the anatomy of Beowolves and what kind of weapons was best used to effectively combat these creatures of Grimm when Ruby and Vi tried to sneak inside only to be caught by the professor and assigned the two to stay for break for being late to class. Ruby groaned and Vi glared at Lucian who never woke them up after his turn in the shower.

Other than their punishment for being late, everything went smoothly and Ruby was actually looking forward to combat class. Her turn to spar with another student was already done so all she had to do today was watch the rest of the first year students fight each other until one loses enough aura energy.

"Hi, Weiss," Ruby cheered, her face glowing with happiness, "Thanks for saving me yesterday and I'm sorry about what happened too. I think I went too far with Yang…"

"Don't apologize to me, you dolt," Weiss snapped, without the glare, "Do it to your sister. You didn't do anything to me, obviously."

Ruby looked down and asked where her sister was and Weiss replied that she was crying her eyes off in her their dorm room. Ruby felt sad and relieved at the same time. I can talk to Yang after this class since it's the last one for the day, Ruby thought to herself.

The matches continued to be hosted by the headmaster but she was more vigilant this time due to Ruby's match incident and she kind of felt bad but Ruby saw new weapons and Ruby couldn't contain herself as she stared in wonder, devising ways how each weapon that each hunter-in-training used them effectively in her own imagination, which she tends to do whenever she met new weapons especially in Atlas or Vale weapon conventions.

The class ended with the last match being one-sided for the short guy with short daggers compared the tall guy with a large gun-blade. Ruby told Vi to go ahead to their dorm room so they could talk later which she agreed and replied that she had something to do anyway and asked Weiss to go with her to their dorm room so she could talk to Yang and apologize.

"Yang?" Ruby called out softly while slowly approaching her sister, "Are you awake?" Weiss took a seat on her own bed and crossed her arms and simply observed whatever was going to happen between the siblings.

"Go away, Ruby," Yang hissed, muffled by her pillow."

"I'm sorry, Yang. I didn't mean to make you angry…"

Yang did not respond verbally. Instead, she lifted her body upwards in a sitting position with her pillow covering her torso and glared at Ruby. Ruby wanted to sit right next to her but didn't know whether it was a good idea to sit next to an angry close ranged specialist-slash-brawler.

"Come sit next to me," Yang said, making space for Ruby on her bed and patting the bed indicating where Ruby should sit. Ruby complied and sat down next to Yang. Weiss gave a small smile which captivated Ruby for a second before returning her attention back to her sister.

Yang suddenly hugged her sister, something Ruby did not expect an angry sister to do when she was definitely angry. "I'm sorry, baby sis. I knew I was being too strict on you but my overprotectiveness always got in the way because of you know what… I failed as a sister, Ruby. I thi-"

"Don't say that!" Ruby interrupted, "You'll always be the best sister for me. I'll never think less of you because you're my only sister, Yang and I'm really sorry for being not a good sister to you."

No words came out of Yang's mouth and she hugged her sister tighter.

"Yang, y-you're crushing me…"

"Oh, sorry about that," Yang apologized, loosening her deathly grip on Ruby.

"I'll talk to you later, Weiss, Yang." Weiss nodded and Ruby left the room. Aqua and Blake came in as Ruby opened the door and she said hello before dashing off to her room.

Ruby stood in front of room one hundred twenty-five and gently opened the door only to find Vi and Lucian arguing about something Ruby didn't understand. Dewitt was in the middle of the two, acting as a buffer between the siblings in case they start getting into a physical fight with each other.

"You just won't listen to me," Vi roared.

"Of course I won't listen to a thing you say. You've been getting on my nerves!"

"Hi, Ruby," Dewitt calmly said.

Ruby waved at Dewitt and took Lucian by his wrist and used her semblance to sit down in a chair and grabbed Vi to her bed where the two now sat together.

"What is happening between the two of you?!" Ruby questioned.

"Luke started all of this!" Vi spoke, trying to calm down as well.

"These have been going at it for at least five minutes," Dewitt stated, "I don't even know what it's even about."

"Lucian, you're the leader of team Lavender. Couldn't you make some sort of terms that'll make you and you and Vi sort of happy?" Ruby was practically begging Lucian.

"So now you're on her side?" Lucian said sarcastically and angrily.

"I'm on both of your sides!" Ruby replied, "Besides, you haven't answered my question. Why were the two of fighting the past few days? I was going to resolve with the two of you but because of my poor health, I haven't had the time!"

"Fine!" Lucian yelled, "We're fighting over her freaking relationships with other people and I don't approve of who she likes!"

"Um… Is that it?" Ruby stated.

Vi gave a frustrated groan and attempted to punch his brother in the face but with Dewitt's quick thinking, he was able to put the distance between the two together again. "You act as if you own my life! Guess what?" Vi screamed, "You don't! Grow a pair and get over it! Besides, do I even say anything about you having a crush on my bestie? No!"

Ruby's eyes widened at the sudden fact that Vi had just disclosed. Not that Ruby has anything against her leader having a crush on her but no one has ever liked the socially awkward girl that only has the time for Crescent Rose, Vi, Yang, and weapons. But she realized that she wasn't the one that should be widening her eyes when she saw Lucian cover his face in embarrassment. Dewitt almost snickered if Lucian hadn't punch his shoulder hard.

"Uh…," Ruby said, "I don't know what to say about all of this…"

"Bestie," Vi said, chuckling slightly, "You've been dating Crescent Rose for as long as I remember. You even sleep in bed with her by your side.

Ruby's face turned red and flustered and she puffed her cheeks, "No, I don't! Don't change the subject, Vi!" As soon as Ruby finished speaking, Lucian ran for the door and went outside in a hurry. "Vi, that wasn't very nice of you! You should've kept it a secret if he didn't want me to know."

"Well," Vi said, "He was going to tell you next week anyway. But this is about me! I'm being selfish right now but he's just pissing me off so much."

"Okay," Ruby said. She stood up and walked over to Dewitt and motioned a hand over to the door.

"What? What did I do?"

"Girl's talk."

"Okay," Dewitt replied.

Once he was out of the dorm room, Ruby plopped herself onto her bed and clutched her chest which was beginning to ache. Vi saw this and realized what their commotion had done to her.

"I'm so sorry, bestie!" Vi said in a worried tone, "I didn't mean for this to happen to you."

"Don't worry," Ruby said, "I need to start using my semblance for frequently anyway. My last visit to the doctor had me start using it anyway alongside with my medicine. I think that you should talk to your brother about this in a more calm way and does Lucian know him?"

"Yeah," Vi replied, "You know him too."

"I'm not going to pry for any information on who you like, Vi," Ruby spoke, "But I hope this would help solve your issues with Lucian and now I have to think about all of this… If you need someone beside you when you talk to Lucian, don't hesitate to ask me."

"Thanks, bestie," Vi said apologetically, "It seems that you helped me out with my problems once again."

"Always glad to help my best friend, Vi."

"Want to talk about what happened with Yang?"

"No, thanks. We resolved it already but thanks for the offer though and do you still have those strawberry stash you kept two days ago?" Ruby grinned deviously and Vi chuckled and took out a bag of strawberries inside her drawer closet and the two ate the strawberries together as they told stories to each other.

Four days later, Ruby and Vi decided to go to downtown Vale together when Vi convinced her bestie to go clothes shopping with her under one condition: they hit a dust shop. Ruby needed to buy the latest issue of Weapon Magazine and see if there could be some components that could allow Crescent Rose to use raw dust for the blade.

The two visited a clothing store first and Ruby having no interest in looking like a girly girl was dragged around by her cloak by Vi around the store. When Vi saw some clothes that she wanted to wear, she told Ruby to stay put and went to the fitting rooms to wear them.

Ruby patiently waited for Vi to come out and she immediately regretted not bringing her headphones and scroll with her and Ruby quickly got bored. Clothes didn't interest her a single bit and Ruby thought that she was probably doing it for the guy she liked. Nonetheless, Ruby found everything in the clothing store boring and Ruby was going to be stuck there for at least an hour based on their previous escapades at Signal Academy.

While waiting and looking up the ceiling to count how many tiles there were, Ruby looked down and saw Weiss to her immediate right. Weiss was browsing the store's catalog and choosing what to buy.

"Hey, Weiss," Ruby greeted making Weiss jump slightly, "Fancy meeting you here."

"Hello, Ruby," Weiss acknowledged, "I assume you're shopping for clothes?"

"No," Ruby said sadly, "I got dragged by Vi into coming here and none of the clothes here would look good on me anyway."

"Hmm…" Weiss looked at Ruby's body from to toe and thought of something and pulled Ruby for her to follow her. "I think I can prove you wrong."

Weiss grabbed a bunch of clothes from the racks and brought Ruby to the fitting rooms and they entered inside a single room.

"Ruby, I want you to take off your clothes and put these on," Weiss handed her a long red dress and a black stockings that would go well with the dress, "It'll be simple but you'll like it when you see yourself."

For some reason, stripping her clothes off in front of Weiss made her embarrassed ten times more if she were to do this in front of Yang but she didn't want to waste Weiss' time nor did she want to make Vi think that she ran off and left her alone so Ruby quickly took off her garments. Plus, Ruby forgot to bring her scroll along with her headphones so she couldn't contact Vi if she wanted to.

Ruby asked for some help taking her corset off and Weiss agreed but as soon as Weiss was able to remove the corset, her fingers had accidentally brushed her back and sent chills to her entire body.

"Sorry about that," Weiss said.

"N-no! It's fine!"

"You seem tense," Weiss noted, "Are you alright, Ruby?"

"Y-yeah! It's just cold in here. Hehe. Yeah, it's just cold in here…"

"Alright, then."

Ruby took off her long sleeved shirt and underneath remained simple underwear, nothing special. Feeling more embarrassed, Ruby turned away from Weiss and put on the dress at once. Then, she took out her feet from her boots and replaced her pants with the stockings that Weiss had made her wear. Once she was done, she turned back to face Weiss.

"Go look at yourself on the mirror."

Ruby followed her instruction and saw herself a completely different person. "Whoa! Is that me?"

"Yes, and I think you look very beautiful and I proved you wrong."

Ruby's face filled with red and with her pale skin, the blush was very noticeable, "T-thanks, I guess…"

"Do you like it?" Weiss asked.

"Very."

"Okay, take them off and I'll buy them for you," Weiss said.

"You don't have to, Weiss. I have enough Lien to pay for these!" Ruby said.

"It'll be my gift as thanks for your sister. I owe her a lot of favors ever since I started attending Beacon."

"Oh, thank you so much then."

"You don't have to be so formal, Ruby. You're a friend's sister which makes you my friend too."

"Thanks, Weiss!" Ruby wanted to hug Weiss but the things she felt earlier stopped her from doing so.

"Anyway, let's get you dressed back and out of here," Weiss said with a warm smile.

Ruby nodded and left the fitting room. When they got out, she saw Vi sitting on a bench looking at her scroll.

"There you are, bestie!" Vi sighed in relief, "I thought that you left to the dust shop without me! Thanks for looking out for Ruby, Weiss."

"No problem," Weiss said.

"Sorry. Hehe," Ruby smiled, "Weiss dragged me into buying clothes."

Weiss left the two to pay for Ruby's clothes and gave the shopping bag to Ruby who thanked Weiss at least five times before letting go.

"Now to the dust shop," Ruby yelled, making everyone at the clothing store look at her. Ruby shied away and felt embarrassed again but to her, this was a different kind of embarrassment.

"You two move along. I still haven't finished shopping here and have a nice day," Weiss said.

"See you later, Weiss," Ruby waved.

The two friends got out of the clothing store with Ruby carrying a single bag while Vi held five or six bags with both her arms and they headed their way to the dust shop called "From Dust Till Dawn"


	7. Experimentation

Edit (06/19/16): Minor grammar edits. Ugh…

* * *

Ruby entered the store first and ran to the back and grabbed the latest issue of the magazine that she wanted to buy since last week. She grabbed a couple other magazines alongside with the Weapons Magazine and proceeded to the counter to order her custom rounds.

Once the store owner had written down the specifics for Ruby's order, Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose and put it down on the counter. Ruby took a handful of dust vials and put them on the counter as well.

"Mister, could you run maintenance on my weapon?" Ruby asked, grabbing the scythe again and transforming it to its scythe form and placed in down on the counter. Her scythe was somewhat worn down from her sparring session which left the scythe wielder almost crippled if it weren't for a senior interrupting the fight, "I don't have the time to fix my weapon so I will be leaving her in your hands."

The owner nodded and Ruby paid the price. The owner took the bag of Lien and gave Ruby a receipt. Ruby left the store with Vi, who was waiting near the exit for Ruby to finish with her business. Vi put down her shopping bags down as she waited Ruby.

"I'll be done with it by tomorrow afternoon. Please drop by to claim it back," the owner stated.

Ruby took the things that she bought in another bag and left the store.

While Ruby and Vi were heading down towards the airstrip back to Beacon Academy, a faint sound of some unknown liquid dripping to the floor accompanied by a banging sound resonated from an alley and Ruby somehow picked it up. She glanced behind and saw nothing. She then traced her steps back to the opening of the alleyway and looked through the alleyway seeing only darkness

"Bestie, where're you going?"

"I don't know… I heard something from here," Ruby replied, "Come on, Vi. Let's investigate!"

"What about these bags, bestie?" Vi asked, "Where are we going to leave them if we do go looking in that suspicious looking hole?"

"Anywhere," Ruby stated. Ruby went in the alleyway and put her bags down in the middle of the alleyway before proceeding further into the path. Vi followed suit and put down her bags with Ruby's.

Ruby walked along the alleyway. After a few minutes of walking, Ruby and Vi ended up in a small, circular open area surrounded by tall buildings. Light only came from a small open hole from above them.

The small space had nothing significant to look at and Ruby scratched the back of her head. There was nothing here and what was the faint sound that she heard? Ruby looked around her and when she was about to turn around to head back, two figures came out of the alleyway and joined them.

"Ruby, Vi?" Dewitt asked, "What're you two doing here?"

"I should be the one asking," Vi countered.

"Uh, we heard something coming from here and we wanted to find it out. We saw some bags along the way but we just left it there. Could they be yours?"

"Yeah," Ruby replied, "They're ours. Anyway, I don't think there's anything he-"

A loud rumble reverberated from inside the walls and the four were alarmed. The four went for their weapons and when Ruby tried to get hers, she remembered that her weapon was still in maintenance back at the shop and she couldn't get it until tomorrow. Luckily for Ruby, Yang had taught her hand-to-hand combat.

"Let's go check it out, team!" Ruby yelled softly.

"Ruby, I'm the team leader here," Lucian spoke.

"Just go with it, Luke."

The entire team went near to where they think they heard the noise. In front of them was a wall made of brick. Vi knocked at the wall, figuring that there was more than just the solid wall behind. Vi pushed the brick wall forward and the brick wall moved. Vi went in the dark and long corridor first and the three followed after. Inside was a small warehouse, big enough to store huge crates of anything.

"Guys, let's split into two teams and search this area," Lucian ordered.

"Let's go, bestie."

Ruby went along with Vi and entered a corridor to their immediate right. Ruby heard the same sound again and tugged on Vi shoulder to follow her.

"I heard it again, Vi. I think it's over there," Ruby said, pointing to her left while walking through the corridor. They followed to where Ruby thought the sound was coming from. Ruby turned left in an intersection on the corridor.

Ruby ended up with a beaten up door in front of her. She grabbed the doorknob, slowly turning it counter-clockwise and gently pushed on the door. Vi readied her staff for an attack from the other side. Ruby fully opened the door and ran inside.

The room was filled with barrels that glowed green inside. The green ambient light wasn't enough to light up the entire room. A musty stench was permeating from the inside. Ruby looked for a light switch right next to the door but could not find any. Vi tossed her a flashlight then Ruby turned it on.

What Ruby and Vi saw numerous black creatures strewn across the floor, either dead or barely hanging on to their last breaths.

"How were you able to hear this, bestie?" Vi asked, shocked at the horrendous discovery. Ruby crouched to take a closer inspection at one of the creatures that were already dead.

Seeing as the room had green chemicals in barrels by the dozen, Ruby grabbed her scroll and took pictures of it to send back to the Academy for further inspection. The creatures were Beowolves but cubs. For some odd reason, these dead Beowolves didn't disappear unlike normal creatures of grimm when they die. Ruby wanted to poke at it but seeing that it was just not the time to do it, she left it alone.

Having no gloves or anything to retrieve any samples, Ruby stood back up and pointed the flashlight directly in front of her. A door to the far right was illuminated. Vi approached the door and went inside only for her to call Ruby.

"What is it?" Ruby asked curiously as she tried to avoid stepping on any of the dead Beowolf cubs, "What's in there?"

"You have to see for yourself," Vi replied.

Ruby entered the room and Vi was standing near a desk and blew on a dusty lamp before turning it on. On the desk were piles of papers. Ruby read through the papers and found documents on the Beowolf cubs and the experiments that were made to them.

"This is horrible," Ruby said sorrowfully, "Whoever did this is horrible."

"Grab those, bestie. We're going back. I think we've seen enough here today," Vi said. Vi firmly grasped Ruby's wrist, pulling and urging for her to go.

Ruby and Vi went back to the small warehouse. Lucian was trying to open one of the crates but Dewitt was against him in doing so.

"We're back. What did you guys find?" Vi yelled over to the two boys.

"We didn't find anythi-"

A loud roar rang through the dark warehouse. About twenty meters from the four hunters-in-training, the darkness was suddenly lit a faint green. The source of the light was from an adult Beowolf roared once again as its fur oozed green liquids off of its skin.

"Dewitt," Lucian said calmly, "Form on me. Violette, go protect Ruby at all costs. We don't want Ruby touching those green stuff. I'll handle that thing and Dewitt, make sure that it doesn't get near any of us."

"Sure," Dewitt replied. Vi stayed silent and knew what she needed to do. Ruby, on the other hand, wanted to pout but she knew the risk of fighting with her fists against a creature that they were currently facing.

Dewitt unsheathed his sword and shield infused with ice dust crystals. Dewitt rushed up front as the Beowolf charged up to them, making the floor rumble, and thrashing the crates out its way. Dewitt turned his sword upside down and stabbed it to the ground creating an ice wall from nowhere.

Lucian prepared a dust magazine and clipped it to his gun-sword and started firing upon the Beowolf in hopes of slowing it down and wounding the creature. The grimm slammed its body on the ice wall that Dewitt created, shattering the wall into shards. Dewitt raised his shield, colliding with the Beowolf. The leather on his shield started corroding but the metal part stayed intact.

Dewitt, struggling a little bit, pushed the grimm with all his strength back before retreating, leaving a wide opportunity for Lucian to strike.

Lucian produced an orb of light from his hand and threw it at the Beowolf. The orb then struck the grimm directly at its forehead, making it a little dizzy. Lucian charged past Dewitt and emptied an entire magazine at the Beowolf's torso, creating large holes on the grimm.

The Beowolf roared in pain and swung its arms wildly, hitting Lucian to his side making the boy fly away from the immense force of the wild swings. More luminescent green liquids flowed through the bullet wounds. Dewitt stood his ground and summoned an Aura force field around himself in which the Grimm slammed itself into the force field, breaking the shield and throwing Dewitt off to the side.

Ruby began to run towards Dewitt but Vi stopped her from doing so.

"Vi, they need help!" Ruby screamed.

"They're fine. They have aura like us but we can't help them if we don't defeat this thing first."

"Okay," Ruby said, "What do I need to do?"

"Just stay back," Vi replied, "Let me handle this."

Vi spun he staff and blinked towards the Beowolf and hit the grimm's torso multiple times making it it howl in pain. Vi blinked back to where Ruby was and gunshots from Ruby's right pierced through the grimm.

Making its last stand, the grimm wanted to take someone with it to its death by mustering up its last reserves of energy left in its body to rush towards Ruby, the most defenseless of the group as of the moment. Vi stood in front of Ruby, protecting her from anything the Beowolf might do.

In a matter of seconds, the mutated Beowolf picked up its pace and Vi simply pushed Ruby to the side.

"Vi!"

Ruby landed on the floor right next to where the grimm had laid holding onto its last breath. Dewitt stood up from where he landed earlier and rubbed his forehead as he walked towards the Beowolf. Once he was next to it, he stabbed his sword to its chest, ending its misery of being experimented on.

Ruby was still in shock because she didn't see Vi get out of the way as the Beowolf collided with the wall. Splinters, pieces of wood, and green blood and chemicals that were mixed together were now spreading across the entire floor. Dewitt helped Ruby stand up, feeling weak in the legs.

"Nice work, bestie!"

Ruby quickly turned his head around and temporarily regained some strength back to his legs. She ran to Vi and gave her a big, bone crushing hug.

"Ouch!" Vi exclaimed, "Bestie, you're crushing me! I barely got out of its way, I need some air!"

"Oh," Ruby apologized, smiling embarrassingly, "Sorry about that…"

"Let's get out of here," Lucian added, walking from behind the two girls, "We need to report this to Beacon as soon as we can. Also, good work team. Get some rest after this but it depends whether we will have something to do that I'm pretty sure would be important."

"Yeah, yeah," Vi said.

* * *

Ruby got back to Beacon and the two friends visited team Basil's dorm room to recount the tale that they had recently had just witnessed. Although Lucian told them specifically not to tell anyone especially Yang, who everyone knew was basically a walking basket never being able to keep a secret for too long but some people knew that she could keep secrets pretty well if it concerned Ruby or her best friend.

"Yang!" Ruby yelled as she entered the team's room only to find it empty except for Weiss filing her nails.

"Yang's out shopping with Blake in downtown Vale for some necessities," Weiss merely stated, resuming to filing her nails, "You guys can stay here until they return. They left an hour ago so they should be back in at least ten minutes. Taking into account that it's your sister that is doing most of the shopping, they should be back in half an hour."

"Okay…," Ruby said, feeling a bit down at how cold Weiss' statement was but she tried to hide it by making a fake smile.

Ruby laid down in Yang's bed and Vi simply sat down next to Weiss on a stool.

"So, Weiss, do you have any tips for make-up?" Vi asked, curiously.

"Yes," Weiss replied, "Sit right there and let me grab my kit."

The two kept a conversation about beauty and everything that Ruby was clearly not interested in so she took out her scroll and texted Lucian on how the report with Professor Goodwitch was going.

" _Lucian, how's it going with the headmaster?"_ Ruby texted.

A couple minutes passed by, at this point, Weiss was applying some powder on Vi's face. Ruby felt a sudden itch that made her want to be the one the white-haired girl was applying makeup on but at the same time, she didn't want to do it because it was girly stuff. Things that women do to impress men and Ruby will not have any of those things. All she needed was Crescent Rose and strawberries, cookies, and milk. Plus her pillows. They were so soft that she couldn't resist sleeping after snuggling them.

Ruby's scroll vibrated and she took it out. A message that said, _"I did all that was needed to be done. She hadn't said anything yet but she did mention that she was going to send a hunter team to investigate. Professor Goodwitch wants to see you tonight for short discussion about something. Just you though. She didn't really say any reason why but yeah."_ Ruby hid her phone in one her side pockets and stored the scroll before watching Weiss apply more makeup on Vi's face to pass some time. Ruby wanted to have her Zwei pillow to hug just to keep her distracted.

Another message came through and Ruby had to rummage through her pockets since she had already forgotten where she had placed her scroll. Once she retrieved it, the message said, _"Ruby, Goodwitch said that you need to stay at your sister's dorm for now since it's fairly close to the headmaster's office and she wanted you to be safe under a senior team. Good night."_ Ruby didn't hide her scroll this time, instead, she put in under the pillow in which her head was resting on.

Ruby turned her body to the opposite direction so that she wouldn't be looking at the two as they cheerfully talked with each other about fashion and all kinds of stuff that just did not click in with Ruby.

A few minutes later, Yang slammed the door wide open with her foot and entered, holding bags of food and necessities. "What's up team Basil!" Yang shouted out loud.

The three were startled as Yang placed the bags down at the nearest table and jumped to Ruby's side.

"Sup sis!" Yang said, "How's it hanging? Having boy issues? Is that why you were here?"

Blake's palm ended up on her face as Ruby's eyes widened, grabbing the pillow where she was just resting her head on and smacked it at Yang's face.

"Hey!" Yang said with a cheeky smile, "So, is it really about boys, Rubes? My baby sister already having a crush?"

"No, Yang!" Ruby groaned, "I was going to tell you about my adventures with my team today but you're just teasing me so I'm not going to tell you about it." Ruby puffed her cheeks and faced the opposite direction from Yang. Weiss rolled her eyes and Vi simply giggled.

"Aw, I'm so sorry, Ruby! I won't fun of you I promise!" Yang said, pleadingly and teasingly, "You have to tell me about today or I won't be able to bake you some of your favorite cookies…"

At the very mention of cookies, Ruby quickly turned around and tackled Yang, pinning her down on the bed, "NO! YOU HAVE TO BAKE THE COOKIES TODAY! I'LL NEVER SURVIVE WITHOUT THEM!"

"First," Yang said calmly, pushing Ruby away gently, "you have to tell me about what happened today."

"Deal."

* * *

"Can I sleep with you tonight, Yang?" Ruby asked.

"Sure, why not?" Yang replied, standing up, "Let me grab some pillows and blankets for you."

Ruby settled down on the bed as she waited for Yang to lay down next to her with an extra pillow and a blanket. "Good night, Yang."

"Good night, baby sis," Yang said, giving her little sister a goodnight kiss on the forehead, "Have some sweet dreams tonight."

"You too."

Vi and Weiss had stopped putting on stuff in their faces to make themselves look fantastic, Ruby could never see the appeal of makeup, and Vi had already gone back to their dorm room, saying good night to Ruby earlier.

Ruby waited for an hour, pretending to be asleep as Yang held her little sister as a hug pillow and Ruby couldn't move an inch or she could wake Yang up. But as soon Yang flipped her body to the other side of the bed, Ruby used her semblance, leaving rose petals as she exited the door towards the headmaster's office.


	8. Revelation

Edit (06/19/16): Minor edits and a couple other sentences.

* * *

Ruby headed to the lockers first to retrieve the documents she had taken from the abandoned warehouse earlier that day in case the headmaster wanted to talk about the things that happened there.. If she caught by on the patrolling huntsmen, she would have a perfect excuse of being called in by the headmaster late at night.

Ruby casually strolled on the school courtyard towards Professor Goodwitch's office. Once she reached the elevator going up to the office, she pressed a button, calling for the elevator to go down. After a few seconds, Ruby entered the elevator and was lifted up to the office.

When the elevator door opened, Ruby was greeted by the headmaster herself. Goodwitch motioned for Ruby to follow her and pointed at a seat before taking a seat for herself. Ruby sat down and put the documents of the desk in front of her.

"Um… Professor, why did you call me here tonight?" Ruby asked.

"Miss Rose," Goodwitch said, "will you swear an oath that everything that is spoken here tonight will be kept in absolute secrecy?"

"U-uh…," Ruby stuttered, "What is _this_ about, Professor?"

"Will you do as I ask?"

"Y-yeah… I guess…."

Goodwitch grabbed the entire pile of paper with her right hand and lifted it up, "This, Miss Rose. I saw you enter Beacon holding these. Do you, by any chance, know what this is?"

"N-no!" Ruby answered, somewhat scared.

"I have been looking for these for two years and you just stumble across these in less than a month in your stay here at Beacon. Can you tell me how you found that place, Miss Rose?"

"Yeah," Ruby said, "I heard weird sounds after I was done shopping. My friend and I were walking to the airlift and I heard it when we passed by a dark alleyway."

"I see," Goodwitch stated, "Tonight, I will discuss with you about these. If someone from the Order had seen you holding these papers, you would have gotten you and your friends killed the moment they saw you. I am aware that some of the staff members are part of the Order but fortunately, luck is with your side today. But I do not think that will last forever, Miss Rose."

"Order?" Ruby asked confused, "What are you talking about, Professor?"

"The Order of the Burning Rose."

"Huh?"

"The Order of the Burning Rose is an underground organization that rose from the ground after the defeat of Salem and the capture of Cinder Fall. They operate very discreetly that even the Vale Police Department has no idea of their existence. Only I and a select few know about them and now including you. I do not know what they're up to but my best guess is that they are preparing for something big. Anyway, do you remember the day you were injured two years ago?" Goodwitch asked sternly.

"Kind of…," Ruby replied, "I was trying to chase a guy named Torchwick and I got too careless that Cinder Fall, I think her name was, was able to get me. My sister told me her name when she and her friend defeated her in the Battle of the Void. My sister was able to take her powers off of her and they put her in prison. Team Basil was awarded the highest medals that Remnant can offer due to their heroic actions." Ruby got excited talking about the stories that Yang had told her when she was still a first year huntress-in-training like herself.

"Miss Rose, are you aware of the White Fang?"

"Yes, they supported Cinder Fall in her campaign to end Vale," Ruby said, confidently and angrily, "My sister found out that… that they lured my mom to her death…"

"My condolences to you, Miss Rose. I am sure you are unaware about this but all of this is related to you in one way or another. I think Cinder Fall purposefully let you live for some reason and I have no idea what her motives are. She refuses to speak while she is being held."

"How am I related to this?" Ruby asked.

"Your mother was able to leave a scar on Cinder Fall," Goodwitch said, "and now, she wanted revenge. She did it with you."

"Wait!" Ruby said loudly, "If you knew about Cinder's plans, then how come you weren't there when I tried to stop her from robbing a dust store?!"

"That would be entirely my fault, Miss Rose. I failed to anticipate Cinder's whereabouts two years ago and I deeply regret not being there to help you stop her," Goodwitch said, maintaining a straight face and composure, "You have every right to be angry at me. You were hurt because I was not able to uphold my task as a huntress. But will you please listen to what I have to say?"

Ruby simply nodded, glaring daggers at the headmaster.

"Six days ago, before your discovery, I sent a team of hunters but they have not returned back from their mission which was supposed to be a quick reconnaissance over at Mountain Glenn. I already told your team leader about this that you and the rest of your team will be sent in as well with the assistance of a senior team of who I am sure you would be very delighted to work with."

"Why me?" Ruby asked, "I haven't done anything special to deserve this kind of attention. I've only made myself look like an idiot, collapsing and fainting during sparring sessions last week. Why, professor?"

"You have silver eyes, Miss Rose. That is one reason I trust the safety of every student and my entire life line here at Beacon Academy to you, Miss Rose," Goodwitch replied.

"Silver eyes?" Ruby was confused. What did silver eyes have to do with being special? She was just some ordinary teenager who happens to be somewhat disabled that she can't use her own semblance properly.

"Your mother had silver eyes too. It's a special trait that not many have. Remnant has full of legends and stories, some of them true, some made up. Back before Huntsmen ever existed, it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior and lead many to greatness. You are one of them, Miss Rose. I am about to give you something that you should never see in your entire life so please prepare yourself." Goodwitch took the top most piece of paper and handed it to Ruby and the heading read: " _Experimentation on Summer Rose, the silver-eyed warrior_ ".

Ruby's eyes went wide in shock and threw the paper back to Goodwitch's desk and tears starting trickling down her cheeks. She didn't think that it would be something that horrible.

" _They will pay!_ " Ruby yelled uncharacteristically.

"They will, in time, Miss Rose," Goodwitch said, trying to ease the pain and anger of Ruby absorbing a lot of information all at once, "Prepare yourself to leave in about a week's time so you can think things through. And please, keep everything that you heard here today as a secret. After Cinder Fall infiltrated this school and managed to successfully cause the fall of this school, I am no longer certain whether everyone can be trusted as the headmaster before had done. Tonight marks the beginning of the end, Miss Rose and you will be the one bringing our enemies down."

Ruby hadn't moved a single muscle from her seat and continued to cry. She had heard Goodwitch clearly but she didn't have the willpower to respond or utter a single sound.

"I will be sending someone to bring you back to your sister's room," Goodwitch said, "And before you go, we will be hosting the Vytal Festival Tournament again to make up for the misfortunate events that happened two years ago. I am telling you this early so please train as hard as you can, Ruby."

The elevator opened and Ruby looked to the person who just entered the office. "Hey, kid. Sorry I couldn't talk to you yesterday. Tell your dad that I'll strangle your dog if he sends him to my house again." Ruby just nodded, but had a less than enthusiastic look.

"Good evening, Qrow," Goodwitch said, "Please assist your niece back to team Basil's dorm room."

"Got you, Glynda," Qrow replied, taking a swig of alcohol, "See you around. Come on, kid. Let's go."

Ruby and her uncle headed out of the office. Ruby was absolutely silent and the atmosphere between the two of them were somewhat awkward but her uncle broke the silence.

"I know everything she talked about to you. Don't worry about anything," Qrow assured, "If anything happens to my niece, they're going to have a miserable time of their life. I'll be keeping watch so just be wary of telling random people some secrets. Okay?"

Ruby smiled weakly when she heard the news.

"Now, let's get you to sleep, kid."

-o-

Ruby woke up and looked at the nearest clock which read five. She then got up and grabbed her Zwei pillow and tossed her Rose pillow to where Yang was lying on the bed. She didn't want her sister to be cranky early in the morning so she left Yang sleeping. Ruby headed back to her own dorm room.

When she entered, he caught Lucian awake and tinkering with some sort of machine on a desk, small enough that it can be hidden with just closing one's own hand. "Good morning, Lucian. What're you doing so early in the morning?"

"U-uh, hey Ruby!" he stuttered, accidentally throwing the device he held on his hand up in the air. When he barely caught it with his hand, he sighed and wiped a droplet of sweat that had formed on his forehead, "You're up early! I thought you usually slept in late."

"I couldn't sleep last night," Ruby stated emotionlessly.

"U-uh... Ruby could you go outside for a sec?" Lucian requested.

"Why?" Ruby asked coldly.

"I just need to do something and I'll call you when you can comeback. Can you do that? I-I mean it's fine if you don't want to go outside," Lucian said, clearly trying to hide the embarrassment from his voice and playing it smoothly.

"Sure."

Ruby clutched her Zwei pillow on her chest and went back outside and walked all the way back to her sister's room and tucked herself next to her sister. Yang unconsciously turned herself around and hugged Ruby. Remembering the night of her talk with the headmaster and the ominous revelation on what actually happened to her mother brought back tears to her eyes and sobbed until she fell asleep with Yang comforting her although she was still asleep.

Ruby woke up to Yang nudging and rubbing her shoulders gently. Ruby slowly opened her eyes as Yang ran a finger through Ruby's cheek, wiping the dried tears off of her.

"Good morning, baby sis. I had Vi drop off some clothes earlier so that you can just take a shower with me!" Yang said enthusiastically but Ruby shoved her Rose pillow at Yang's face and buried her face on her Zwei pillow.

"Come on, sis," Yang said, "What's got you sad so early in the morning?"

"Nothing," Ruby said weakly.

"Rubes, you know you can talk to me when you're feeling down. I always talk to you whenever I felt down, remember?"

Yang had called Ruby at least once every two weeks and the two would go on for hours about Yang's problems but this was different for Ruby. She couldn't talk to anyone about it. It was entirely confidential and not something that was to be said casually. If Yang learned the truth behind their mother, Yang would have definitely get herself killed in the hands of the Order.

"I can't talk about it no matter what," Ruby hissed.

"Everything alright, here?" Weiss interrupted, fresh from the bathroom wearing nothing but two towels that wrapped around her body and her hair. For some reason, Ruby felt faint and wanted to hide from Weiss. Her face went red and Yang caught on to this and smirked without Ruby knowing why.

"Everything is _definitely_ all right here, Weiss. Go away and put some clothes on," Yang said in the most polite way as she could while grinning widely, "You, young miss, are coming with me outside. Hehe."

Yang lifted her younger sister from the bed and carried her to the front of the door. Yang asked Blake, who was currently reading a book for leisure, to open the door for them in which she disgruntledly obliged to do. Once the sisters were outside, Yang knocked on the door opposite of theirs and waited for someone to open the door.

"What's up, Jauney boy," Yang greeted, "Those lovebirds here?"

Jaune glared at Yang and shook her head.

"Can my sister and I have a private conversation inside?" Yang asked, "We don't want Ice Princess hearing what we're about to say." At the mention of Weiss, Ruby's already flustered face reddened even more.

"Yeah, I got to go somewhere anyway," Jaune responded, "See you two around." With that, Jaune left the two alone inside his dorm.

Yang sat Ruby down who was covering her face with both of her hands while holding her pillow on her stomach.

"So, having boy problems lately?" Yang asked sarcastically.

"NO!" Ruby yelled.

"If not boys, then what about girls?" Yang said, smiling widely at her victorious moment of discovery.

"N-NO! I don't have anyone that I like! I'm not like that either!"

"You sure about that, Rubes? I heard that Weiss Queen is really hot and she's really, really pretty despite her cold demeanor."

"I see," Yang said, faking disappointment in her voice, "I thought that you were blushing because Weiss was wearing almost nothing and it was very revealing."

Ruby threw her pillow to Yang's face and Yang caught it without any trouble. "I think someone has a crush on the Ice Princess… You have any idea who Rubes?"

"NO! I don't have a crush on Weiss!" Ruby retorted.

"Okay," Yang said, "I'll believe you but you have to at least tell me why you've been crying in your sleep? Tell me what it's about if you don't want to talk about it."

'It's about mom…," Ruby said all traces of her usual bright cheerfulness was gone.

"Oh… I guess I shouldn't be prying, huh?"

Ruby nodded and she started sobbing. Yang approached her and gave her a warm hug, holding her tightly. "You can still talk to me, Ruby. I'll keep your secrets with me to the grave. I can promise that for my only dear sister."

"I… I snuck out of the room last night because professor Goodwitch called me to her office late at night and we… we talked about a lot of things including mom…" Ruby's sobs turned into crying and Ruby buried her face onto Yang's chest, "I… I thought I got over… over mom's death because she was huntress and it was a liability because we risk our lives to save others… T-the professor showed me how she died and I… I just got so angry…

"It's okay, Ruby," Yang said, "You don't have to talk about it anymore if it makes you sad but let's talk about Weiss. Let's talk about something else, okay?"

Ruby nodded, burying her face further into Yang's chest.

"You don't have to deny that you like Weiss because your face is telling me that you really do. It's okay that you like girls, Rubes. There's nothing wrong with liking Weiss. It's just the matter of Weiss liking you back."

"Do I really have a crush on her?" Ruby said, her voice muffled by Yang's shirt.

"You have to ask yourself that, baby sis," Yang replied.

"I don't know…"

"Have you ever like you know wanted to be close to Weiss, like all the time?" Yang asked. Ruby simply nodded, "I saw a couple days ago that Weiss was doing Vi's makeup, did you ever think that you wanted to be the one that Weiss was applying makeup on?" Ruby nodded again and tightened her hug on Yang.

"I don't know what to do Yang…," Ruby said, "There's a lot of things that are happening to me ever since I came here at Beacon… It's only been a wee and I haven't done anything but be a burden to all of you… I… I was always fainting even in Signal because I keep using my semblance too much even though the doctor told me not to do use it like that and I keep making you angr-"

"Me being angry means that I care about you a lot, baby sis. I worry a lot about you and I think it's fine that I worry too much about you. I really, really care about you, Rubes so don't take anything personally, okay? I'm just watching out for you," Yang said, comforting the younger girl, "I haven't said this much since you got yourself injured two years ago but I love you, sis. I will be the best sister you can ever have and I will always have your back no matter what happens because we're sisters. I'll even support you in your conquest of melting the Weiss Queen's heart and she'll be all yours."

"Ugh… Yang! Stop making me think about these kind of stuff!"

"Alright. Alright," Yang said, "I have a question though. How'd you even fall for Princess?"

"I… I don't know," Ruby replied, "Maybe after she saved me? She looked so cool when she put that ice wall up like one of those stories you told me once as a kid."

"Aww!" Yang said, "How cute!"

Ruby lightly punched her sister on her side which made Yang chuckle a bit and she released Ruby from the hug before turning her entire body around, "It's official. You are in love with the most difficult person in the world, Weiss Schnee." Yang burst a laugh and Ruby's face flustered again and pouted and puffed her cheeks before storming out the room in sheer embarrassment and realization that she fell for a girl but not just any girl, Weiss Schnee who have lightened up to her friends but was still cold and cruel to other people. Luckily for Ruby, she was only stuck in the friend zone for now.

Ruby ran back to her dorm room and once she opened it, she was surprised by Lucian who held a miniature and fully-operable Crescent Rose and said, "Will you go out with me, Ruby Rose?"

* * *

" **Nope!" That's what I'd say. lol**


	9. Pain

Edit (06/19/16): Minor edits, grammar and all.

* * *

"Will you go out with me, Ruby Rose?" Lucian said with his voice trembling filled with nervousness.

Lucian extended his hands towards Ruby. He held a miniaturized version of Crescent Rose that was fully operational without the gun capabilities. Lucian had been spending the night before working on the gift he was about to give to Ruby. Ruby honestly thought that it was poorly prepared but it was a nice thought that Lucian would use her free time to make something for her instead of getting some sleep. Ruby couldn't do anything other than accept the gift.

"Um…," Ruby hesitated to talk, she had forgotten what Vi had told her that Lucian would do this sometime this week. It threw her off a little bit not knowing how to respond and realizing her own feelings for the Schnee heiress didn't help at all. "Uh, I'm so-"

"I know you don't like me the same way I like you but could you please give me a chance? Like a week?" Lucian was pleading as if he could never get another chance at asking Ruby out, which was partially true for Ruby's case. But being a person who feels bad at saying no to another person made Ruby feel bad for rejecting Lucian without even giving him a chance. "If you still don't like me by the end of the week, I'll never bother you ever again with this kind of stuff…"

"I guess… but it'll only be just a week, right?" Ruby asked suspiciously.

"Y-yeah! Thank you so much Ruby! You don't know how much this means to me!" Lucian took Ruby's hands and shook them in delight. Ruby retracted her hand when she felt that it didn't feel right to her. Lucian was surprised at what Ruby did but what did he expect? Ruby didn't really like him romantically.

"I have to go somewhere," Ruby said, giving herself a vague excuse to get away from her new boyfriend? Or Friend? Ruby didn't really know. She wasn't sure what to think of it either. Ruby didn't feel her heartbeat rise nor did she feel anything special for the boy. But it would be a different case for the heiress.

Speaking of the person, Ruby stumbled upon the heiress and she fell down flat on her face. Weiss was staring at her in disbelief at how clumsy the girl could be before lending a hand to help Ruby stand up. "Just how could anyone fall down on the floor like that, you dolt?" Weiss' voice had a playful sound, "Here, stand up. Let's get you fixed up."

As soon as Ruby stood up, the door to her dorm opened up and Lucian showed up, "Hey Ruby, is it okay for you if I called you my girlfriend?"

Ruby's eyed widened in shock. Ruby faced the older girl looked unamused and a little bit saddened. Ruby quickly turned around to face the boy and shook her head and mouthed and motioned for him to go away. Lucian was happy to oblige and blushed before returning to the dorm room.

"So…," Weiss said void of emotion, "You two dating?"

"Uh… um… n-no," Ruby managed to reply.

"Then why the term of endearment?"

"The what?" Ruby asked.

"Why did he ask you if he can call you his…," Weiss paused slightly, "girlfriend?"

"U-uh," Ruby stuttered, "I couldn't say no after he worked on this all night…" Ruby showed Weiss the small replica of Crescent Rose the blade stretching out automatically. However, if the blade had been sharp, it would've cut through Ruby's skin easily. Fortunately for the scythe-wielder, the weapon trinket was blunt, "But it'll only be for a week so please don't tell Yang!" Ruby took both of Weiss' hands and pleaded on her knees. "I don't really like-like him b-but… uh…," Ruby's voice became erratic as she realized that Weiss' hands were as smooth as silk. Her hands were very well taken care of, "u-uh he wanted me to give him a fair chance…"

"I see," Weiss said as her only reply, "Well, I hope that it works out for the both of you." Weiss left with a smile. On the other hand, Ruby's cheery façade was gone as soon as Weiss had turned her back towards her. If she broke off with Lucian right now, she'd feel terrible for not upholding the trial period but Ruby knew she wouldn't be happy about it either.

Ruby proceeded to get lunch, meeting up with Vi already sitting down and eating her own lunch. Ruby lined up to get her dose of strawberries, cookies, and milk on a metal tray. After retrieving her food, she sat down next to Vi.

"Whash up, beshtie?" Vi asked while chewing on her food. For a well-off girl, she was quite rude sometimes. "Any news lately? It's been kind of boring around here with nothing to do other than train and train with our team. Speaking of our team, how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine. Just need to not use my semblance much and no. I don't have any news to report to you, ma'am," Ruby said, giving Vi a fast salute.

"Oh, that's boring…," Vi said in defeat.

"Hello, girls, lovely morning?"

"Huh?" Vi looked up to see Dewitt approaching them holding a tray of food, "Oh yeah. Pretty fantastic." Vi ate a big bite and chewed it in a fast manner. "How's your morning? Seen my brother?"

"No," Dewitt replied, "Not really. Haven't seen him since I woke up except that he was doing something late at night. I ignored him because I think he was doing homework for Monday."

"That's unusual," Vi said, "He usually does them during class or right after we get back from classes. If he's doing something late at night and not sleeping for it, then it must be something really important for him. Like, Ruby. Right, bestie?" Vi looked over to Ruby whose face was really red. Ruby looked down to hide her face but Vi caught on to it anyway.

"Wait," Vi said, scoffing a little, "Did he actually ask you out?"

"N-no!" Ruby stammered, "H-he didn't ask me out!"

"Your face says differently," Vi smirked, "When did he ask you to be his girlfriend?"

"I'm not his girlfriend and we're not really dating and it'll only be for a week because I don't like him the way he likes me but I couldn't say no because I would feel really bad if I said no to him because he gave me this thing," Ruby said continuously in one breath while taking out the trinket that Lucian made on top of the table in front of her two team members, "Plus, I already have someone that I li-" Ruby immediately covered her mouth with her two hands. Her face became redder in embarrassment and just slammed her face flat onto the table.

"So, Ruby has someone that she likes… huh," Vi teased, "That's new. I was actually certain that you'd get married to Crescent Rose as soon as we get out of this hunter school."

Ruby didn't respond and just groaned in misery.

"Aww, come on bestie. Cheer up," Vi said, "I'm sure that Lucian will be miserable by the end of the week. Just don't fall for the idiot now, okay Ruby?" Ruby simply groaned again in response.

A couple minutes later, Vi and Dewitt was chatting together while Ruby was slowly picking on her food. The four members of team Gneiss showed up together. Greene sat down next to Ruby. "What's wrong with her?" He ruffled Ruby's hair but she swatted them away with her chocolate-stained hand.

"Whoa, I guess it's that bad, huh?" Greene said, "I'm not going to ask. But I have a favor to ask you. Could you meet me at my dorm room later this evening? I just need some help from you since you're really good with making weapons." Ruby nodded her head while her face was still on top of the table.

"Thanks and sorry for asking for a favor on a clearly wrong ti-," Greene was interrupted by Lucian who was smiling his face off and grinning widely. He sat down across from Vi and placed his tray gently down on the table before starting to eat.

"Great," Vi said, "Everyone from Signal is now here. Well… except for Dewitt. He's from Vacuo but no offense. Sorry about that. So, you guys wanna do something? It's the weekend and there's nothing here for me to do."

"Ruby, want to go out with me downtown tomorrow?" Lucian asked. His statement was quite bold and threw everyone in the group off. None of them expected something like that from a shy intellectual. Vi sort of expected it since she figured it out earlier but Lucian saying it in person was quite different. Greene, on the other hand, looked unamused.

Ruby stood up, grabbing the Crescent Rose trinket and threw it straight to Lucian's face. "I'm _going_ to visit mom." Ruby stormed out of the cafeteria leaving her lunch behind.

"What did I do wrong?" Lucian asked, confusingly.

"You've gone arrogant to think that she already likes you back even though not a single hour has passed," Vi said, "Hate to break it you, Luke but she doesn't like you one bit."

"But she said yes! Why?" Lucian added.

"Pity, it seems," Dewitt replied bluntly.

The boys of team Gneiss snickered and laughed at the poor boy's loss. Greene was laughing hard that his stomach hurt that he had his arms on his stomach to somewhat alleviate the pain.

Lucian stormed off of to catch up to Ruby and Vi continued to eat her food as well as the rest of the group.

* * *

Ruby pushed the door to team Basil's dorm with an angry and sad look on her. Yang was doing sit-ups on the floor while Weiss ignored the yellow-haired girl to her exercises in order to study. Yang stopped as soon as she saw Ruby storm inside their room and stood up to comfort her sister. "What's wrong, Rubes?"

Ruby didn't answer but she buried her face onto Yang and went into a fit of sobbing. A few minutes later of crying her eyes until they were dry, Yang wiped Ruby's face with her hands and rubbed her back.

"Can you talk to me now, baby sis?"

Ruby nodded weakly, "I want to go see mom, tomorrow."

"Okay," Yang said, "Who made you cry though?"

"Lu-Lucian…"

"Do you want me to _break_ his arms?" Yang asked. Ruby nodded.

"Stay here for a minute or two, okay?" Yang said, putting Ruby's body on top of her bed, "I've got some bones to break." Yang smacked his fists together and activated Ember Celica. "Weiss, could you watch over my little sis for a while until I get back?"

"Sure," Weiss replied. Yang headed out of their room and almost instantaneously, Ruby and Weiss heard a boy screaming, as if he was being chased for his life.

"What did that brute of a boy do to you?" Weiss asked Ruby.

Ruby kept silent.

"Don't want to talk about it?"

Ruby nodded.

"Alright," Weiss said, "If you do ever want to talk about it, I'll be here for you." Ruby's face blushed when she heard that Weiss was there for her. At the spur of the moment, Ruby felt her heart beat more rapidly and she had the sudden urge to tell the heiress that she liked her but Ruby thought that she might not like her back. So she turned away from Weiss to calm herself down.

Ruby lied down on the bed silently as she waited for Yang. Her sister came back five minutes later with a bloody knuckle. When Weiss saw this, she outraged and stood up in front of the brawler, "You could get our team disbanded and you could get expelled!"

"What for?"

"Look at your hand!" Weiss shouted and threw a napkin which was resting on top of the study table at Yang. Ruby turned back to see that Yang's fist was dripping with blood. Ruby jumped up to Yang and took her sister's hand and said, "Yang, what happened to your hands?!"

"Oh. Funny story," Yang said, wiping the blood off of her hand with the napkin and carried Ruby back to her bed, "I was chasing that idiot all across Beacon and when I was about to get a punch on his face, he looks at me and looks back to his front and he smacked his face on a door and broke his nose. I, not being a horrible person, helped him get up. Some of the blood that came out from his nose got to my hand. The end. So basically, Lucian was an idiot. I don't know what you two even fought about. But now I'm curious. What did you two fight about, Rubes?"

"They're dating," Weiss stated.

"W-what?!" Ruby screamed, "W-we're not dating at all! I already told you that, Weiss!"

"Oh yeah," Weiss said.

"YOU'RE WHAT?!" Yang shouted, her eyes turning red. Yang activated Ember Celica once again, "This just gives me more of a reason to actually break his face!"

"YANG! CAN WE JUST CALL DAD SO WE CAN GO VISIT MOM TOMORROW?"

"Right," Yang said, calming down a little as her eyes went back to their normal lilac shade.

* * *

Yang and Ruby's dad stopped the car right before a clearing near a forest. It was already autumn and the light shone different shades of orange, red, and yellow. Dried leaves were scattered all around the clearing. The some trees were had begun hibernating a few weeks ago and some trees still had their leaves on. Ruby went ahead carrying a picnic basket and entered the forest. Ruby had already memorized the way to her mother's grave as she had already visited it countless of times. At first, the forest was Grimm-infested but with her constant dedication in making her mother's final resting place a safe place, the Grimm had either fled or died off as a result.

Ruby would enter the forest from a short pathway that led to a dead end. From there, Ruby would continue walking straight and then turn left at a point where Ruby had marked with a stone marker, a big stone with progressively smaller stones stacked onto one another, and just keep walking straight from there. As soon as she gets out of the forest, her mother's grave stone would always be covered in leaves whenever she visited her. Ruby put her picnic basket down and used her hands to sweep away the leaves and Ruby dusted off the dirt and particles that were on her mother's grave. For Ruby, this was a ritual she had been observing ever since her mother had died from the hands of the White Fang with their experimentation.

"Hi mom! I just wanted to visit you today because things aren't going so well at school. I have this friend and he asked me if I could be his, you know… but he wanted me to give him a chance… I did but he broke my trust so I got angry and being angry reminded me of you, mom... It feels so wrong that getting angry reminds me of you but Miss Goodwitch, the current headmaster of Beacon Academy, told me how you died mom. I just got so angry! I couldn't stop myself but I have Yang so I think you should thank her for that. Those White Fang and their stupid experiments... They took you away from me! I want to get revenge but I'm _weak_ and _helpless_ , mom! I want to kill her so bad! Cinder Fall did all of this but I can't do ANYTHING!" Ruby broke down and dropped to her knees and started crying once again.

Yang had heard everything that Ruby had said and rushed to her side, rubbing her back. "Ruby… we will get revenge in time. But please for me," Tears formed in Yang's eyes as they trickled down her cheeks. It was her own way of grieving. To Yang, Summer was her mom too even if she wasn't her blood mother. She grew up with Summer and came to love her as Ruby had loved her mother, "We will avenge mom in time, baby sis." Yang carried Ruby, who was still crying, and laid her down on the ground before setting up the picnic blanket on the ground.

Their father, who was carrying two big bags of food and utensils, saw her two daughters crying and placed the bags down on top of the picnic blanket and hugged her two girls.

"Stop crying you two," he said, "Your mom wouldn't like it if you two are crying in front of her. We have food to eat so let's dry those eyes up and start eating."

Yang wiped her tears away and wiped Ruby's tears with her hands. She then placed a kiss on her forehead making Ruby smile weakly.

After a while, the two sisters' father took out the food that was packed in various lunch boxes that had labels on them along with a bunch of spoons, forks, and knives as well as drinking cups. One of the lunch boxes had Ruby's name on it so she took hers and opened it. Inside was one of her mother's special recipe for her Rose: A Strawberry Cream Tart. It didn't look like the way her mother would do it but her dad definitely put in a lot of effort to make it for Ruby.

"Thanks dad," Ruby said weakly.

"No problem. Anything for my daughters."

Ruby, Yang, and their father quietly ate at first but Yang soon brought up a topic and soon, the broken family was cheery once again. Ruby had temporarily forgotten her troubles and she started to enjoy their family bonding time as they visited the grave stone of the two girls' mother.

The sun slowly set down as the orange radiance shined brightly over the picnic. The breeze slowly moving the leaves as Ruby said her farewells to her mother as they leave and head back to their ordinary lives.

* * *

 **Honestly, I feel like this is some filler chapter that my useless brain thought of. Now that I re-read this, I now know why I got lost! :D**


	10. Takeoff

"Ruby, do you know where my sister is?" Lucian asked, still feeling down from Ruby's disapproval of him. Ruby simply pointed a finger towards Vi who was sitting next to Greene and having fun talking with him. Ruby turned her head away from the boy and walked away from Lucian. He glared at the two before briefly thanking Ruby who had already left him alone and left to go to her sister.

The weather forecast had said that today had a very slim chance of raining but Ruby was stuck inside a building next to the airstrip where she was awaiting for her team's Bullhead to arrive. A stormed had brewed earlier that morning so their team's mission was delayed until the storm dies but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Instead of just waiting, Ruby pulled out her scroll and started to play some games while sitting down on a beat-up chair.

Ruby had been alone ever since she had practically broke off with Lucian. In her fit of anger, Ruby challenged Lucian to a duel during class one day after returning from visiting her mother's grave. Despite Lucian's soft-heartedness and unwillingness to fight Ruby, she called the boy a coward and punched his face with enough force to break his nose but she had used her semblance so she was able to create such power through a small punch. Although Lucian's nose had been quickly healed thanks to his own aura, it had deformed slightly and he would need a real doctor to snap it back into place. Due to this incident between the two, Ruby had gotten in trouble from his own uncle who was supervising the matches. Ruby had only gotten a lunch detention which took her precious time away from her precious strawberries, cookies, and milk. The worst thing that had happened that day was Goodwitch scolding Qrow, a drunk teacher at Beacon Academy, about him not being tight with the rules. Ruby had been saved that day. Although Ruby had gotten the satisfaction of punching her own team's leader, Vi stopped talking to her, not out of anger but of fear of what Ruby might do next. Ruby definitely did not want things to end that way but it was way too awkward for the scythe-wielding girl to her best friend as of the moment.

The loud and constant patter of the rain outside along with the gale had made airship landings nearly impossible. Team Lavender was supposed to be at the mission site and meet a senior team with a hunter there right about now but the unexpected delays changed their plans. The senior team might have not even taken off because the storm cancelled virtually every flight in Vale due to the strong winds and numerous counts of lightning striking within close proximity of the Bullheads. To pass the time, Ruby hid her scroll to save the battery life of her scroll and took out a book she had borrowed from Weiss the day before today. The book that Ruby borrowed was about a tale of two sisters which caught the red-haired girl's interest in the first place.

The two sisters had lost both of their parents and the younger sister fell ill and the older sister who was at the age of ten at the beginning of the story had to fend for her own sister and herself at a time of need and depression. Being an orphaned girl without anyone to turn to or depend on in this period of time was not ideal at all. It would be a miracle if the two siblings survive through this ordeal. But through the older sister's persistence on supporting her sister through hard menial labor, the two were able to survive and keep their house in their possession through the help of the older girl's connections from her varying jobs. Within a few a years, the two sister develop a close bond and both mature in their own ways. The older sister grew up as a young independent woman while the other grew up as a dependable young girl.

The older sister, although looked healthy, kept her declining health a secret from her sister and others she had depended on throughout her life. One day she collapses in front of her own sister and falls ill as her sister had when their lives had been changed for the worse. The younger sister now at the age of ten was left all on her own to take care of her sister.

Ruby closed the book after she heard the announcement say that the storm had calmed down and it was now safe for Bullheads to resume flights. Ruby stood up but was quickly sat back down by a pair of hands pushing her down back to her seat.

"How's my baby sis doing?" Yang said while giving Ruby a hug from behind, "My team and I were supposed to be flying hours ago but you know what happened. Anyway, what're you reading? Saw you earlier reading a book. I mean it's not unusual for you to read a book especially at a time like this so uh… you know…"

Ruby gave Yang a confused look and asked, "Yang, you're usually straightforward but right now, you're just rambling about me reading a book."

"Ehehe… do I really sound like that nervous?" Yang said, scratching the back of her head and smirking a little bit.

"Yeah, you definitely nervous. What made you nervous?"

"Ah… You know. The usual stuff that makes me nervous?"

"You mean me fighting and collapsing like usual? You're pretty easy to read today, Yang. I think the only thing that would make you this nervous is Blake. Remember when we had that one fight a couple weeks ago? You told me that you gave up on Blake. I didn't understand what you meant back then but I found something that made me understand."

Yang's face flushed with redness and hid her face with her hands and buried her head on top of Ruby's head. "You caught me. Ehehe… You figured out that I'm in love with Blake. Please don't judge me because I like girls."

"Yang you are definitely, I mean totally not acting like yourself. I think I'm going to miss my sister if you're going to keep this up, Yang." Ruby lifted Yang's face and straightened her face, "Yang, even if we're half-sisters, I still grew up with you since I was born. We've been through a lot together and I don't regret you being my sister at all even if you like girls!" Ruby's smile was very infectious that Yang started smiling as well. This time, Ruby was the one hugging her older sister tightly. Yang didn't seem to mind that Ruby was at the verge of crushing her bones but she was already used to it by now.

"You're right, Rubes. I guess I shouldn't be worrying about this, huh?" Yang sighed and pushed her away gently and kissed her forehead, "Thanks, I think I needed this kind of talk. I don't what to do after my team and I get back from our mission. There's an upcoming dance and I want to invite Blake as my partner during the dance. At least I'm not organizing the entire party by myself this time unlike my first year. I did almost all the work if it weren't for team Juniper. Pyr-…," Yang slightly paused and hesitated to continue but she just sighed, "Never mind that I said that. Anyway, you got me curious. What do you mean by something changed that made you understand? You got a crush on someone, Rubes?"

"Oh…," Ruby simply said, " _Well! Look at the time! I think my team needs me to go with them now or we would be late for our mission. Good luck, big sis!_ " Ruby rushed to get away from Yang and managed to keep her own face from blushing while in Yang's line of sight. After she turned around away from Yang, Ruby walked at a fast rate and her face started to redden just like Yang's face had earlier.

"TEAM LAVENDER AND BASIL, PLEASE REPORT TO BULLHEAD NUMBER TEN. TEAM RANGER AND GNEISS, PLEASE REPORT TO BULLHEAD NUMBER TWENTY-THREE."

The announcement continued to read other team's names to call them to their respective Bullheads that they will be flying on so that they can proceed to their mission site. Ruby heard her sister's team name and panicked since Yang would obviously be in Team Basil and Ruby had realized that the senior team that Ruby was supposed to meet earlier if not for the storm was her sister's. Yang would definitely tease the living daylights out of Ruby about who her crush was and most likely would not stop until Yang had been satisfied at her own expense. Ruby tried to ignore the fact that Yang was going to be bothering her but on the bright side, Weiss was there. Ruby already accepted the fact that she liked girls as well. If Ruby had lied to Yang earlier, it would only make her seem as a hypocrite.

Ruby ran inside of the Bull head along with her luggage and Crescent Rose. She had left both of her pillows back at her dorm since it would just get dirty if she brought it with her. Her team had settled down inside the airship not too long ago and Vi approached Ruby.

"Hey, bestie. I'm sorry for yesterday," Vi apologized, "I should've been with you yesterday. I personally think that… Would you like to take a seat first?" Ruby nodded and followed Vi to a vacant seat and sat down with her luggage in front of her. "I personally think that Lucian took it way too far. I heard the reason why you got mad at him and I would've been mad at him as well if I were in your shoes…"

"Don't worry about it Vi," Ruby said, giving Vi a small hug before letting her go, "I just needed to release some stress that's been building up because of my condition but I did find out that I can now use my semblance twice in two quick burst unlike before. I could only do it once. So I guess that's good news, right?"

"WHERE'RE YOU HIDING, BABY SIS?! WE'RE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT YOUR _LOVE LIFE_ YET!" Yang yelled inside the Bullhead even though she was clearly aware where Ruby was. Lucian snuck a peek at Ruby but Ruby caught him and instantaneously glared at the boy which made him look away. "AH! FOUND YOU RUBY. WE'RE GOING TO BE TALKING ALL ABOUT YOUR _LOVE LIFE_ NOW!"

"YANG, STOP THAT!" Ruby yelled back. Yang approached the two and sat down next to Ruby.

"So, who is it, baby sis?"

"Stop!"

"Nope! You know that my thirst for love stories will never be quenched unless you tell who it is," Yang smirked, knowing that Ruby would be defeated no matter what she did and Yang would be able to find out either way, "So, is it someone in this ship right now?" Yang swiped Ruby's hand and curled them into fists. Ruby's eyes widened because whatever Yang planned, it was always a hundred percent guaranteed that it was going to be painful.

The entire Team Lavender was present but Weiss, Blake, and Aqua had yet to show up. "No." Yang slightly squeezed Ruby's hands and Ruby winced as she felt a lot pain on her hands. "NO! SHE'S NOT HERE!"

"Oh!" Yang said excitedly, "Now I know why you didn't even ask me why I liked the person I liked." Yang was being cautious around Violette.

" _Ruby, I didn't know you liked girls,_ " Vi whispered to Ruby. Ruby's only response was to put her down in shame as she had carelessly revealed that she liked girls as well.

"Well, this is very enlightening! I won't judge you either but I still have to find out who. Ehehe." Yang didn't let go of Ruby's hands, "So who is it?" Yang squeezed Ruby's hands once again and Ruby's face was simultaneously red from pain and embarrassment.

"It's no one!" Ruby screamed in pain.

" _Sure_ "

"Yang, aren't you taking it a bit too far?" Vi was showing concern for her partner who was wincing in pain.

"Nah, I don't think so. I told her who I liked so I think it would be a little fair that she tells me," Yang said while laughing cynically.

"Yang! I'm already seventeen years old! P-plus, I figured out yo- oww! You liked! Leave me alo- owwowowow!" Yang put more pressure on Ruby's hand. To escape, Ruby kneed Yang knee and she whelped in pain and let go of Ruby's hand to caress her knee. Ruby stood up and ran behind Vi and sat next to her away from Yang.

"What was that for?" Yang hissed.

"That was what you rightly deserved!" Ruby scoffed.

"Guys, you're being childish in front of them," Vi said, pointing a finger at Blake, Weiss, and Aqua."

"How is it going, friends?" Aqua greeted.

"Nothing much, just trying to figure out who Ruby likes," Yang said. It caught Weiss' attention who was previously leering at Yang, "Should be interesting, right Weiss?"

"Shut up you brute!" Weiss retorted, "We're going to take off in a couple minutes so I suggest that you shut up and let me read my book in peace."

"Yeah!" Ruby added.

"Fine, fine," Yang said in defeat, "I'll just seat right next to you Princess. Don't worry. I won't be bothering you at all." Yang carried Ruby by her waist and sat down next to Weiss with Ruby next to her.

"Are you all fine back there?" the pilot asked.

"We're alright. We have everything that we need so we should be fine for take-off," Aqua replied.

A couple seconds later, the plane hatch closed and the plane took off shortly towards some abandoned and grimm-infested village on the border of Vale.

* * *

 **First Arc Complete**

* * *

I wanted it to be short today so sorry for disappointing you guys after waiting for two weeks. I really had my monthly thing so I couldn't write last week. By the way, I made the cover myself. What do you guys think? It's my first time drawing digitally. I personally don't think it's anywhere good.


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